JC-NRLF 


JOYS  OF  THE  ROAD 


Afoot  and  light-hearted  I  take  to  the  open  road, 
Healthy,  free,  the  world  before  me, 
The  long  brown  path  before  me  leading  wherever  I 
choose. 

Henceforth  I  ask  not  good-fortune,  I  myself  am  good- 
fortune, 

Henceforth  I  whimper  no  more,  postpone  no  more,  need 
nothing^ 

Done  with  indoor  complaints,  libraries,  querulous  criti- 
cisms, 

Strong  and  content  I  travel  the  open  road. 

WALT  WHITMAN 


Joys  of  the  Road 

A  LITTLE  ANTHOLOGY 

IN  PRAISE  OF 

WALKING 


COMPILED 

BY 
W.R.B. 


CHICAGO 

Browne's  Bookstore 

MDCCCCXI 


The  Merrymount  Press,  Boston 


NOTE 

THE  Compiler  begs  to  offer  grateful 
acknowledgment  to  those  who  have 
permitted  him  to  make  use  of  the  copy- 
righted material  in  the  following  pages : 
to  Messrs.  Hough  ton  Mifflin  Company 
for  the  extracts  from  Thoreau  and  Mr. 
John  Burroughs;  to  Messrs.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons  for  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson's 'Walking  Tours"  and 
"The  Vagabond";  to  Mr.  Bliss  Car- 
man  for  ' '  The  Joys  of  the  Road ' ' ;  and 
to  Messrs.  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  for 
the  extract  from  William  Morris's 
poem,  "The  Message  of  the  March 
Wind."  Mr.  Arthur  Symons's  "On 
the  Roads"  is  taken,  by  permission, 
from ' 4  The  Poems  of  Arthur  Symons, ' ' 
published  by  Mr.  William Heinemann, 
London ,  and  John  Lane  Co . ,  New  York . 


251195 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The  Joys  of  the  Road.  Bliss  Carman  9 

ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY.  WILLIAM 

HAZLITT  14 

The  Vagabond.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  36 

WALKING    TOURS.    ROBERT    Louis 

STEVENSON  38 

Afoot.  C.  Fox  Smith  54 

WALKING.  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  56 

On  the  Roads.  Arthur  Symons  76 

THE  EXHILARATIONS  OF  THE  ROAD. 

JOHN  BURROUGHS  77 

Night  and  the  Inn.  William  Morris  IO2 


THE  JOYS  OF  THE  ROAD 

BLISS  CARMAN 


e  joys  of  theroad  are  chiefly  these  : 
A  crimson  touch  on  the  hard-  wood  trees; 

A  vagranfs  morning  wide  and  blue, 
In  early  fall,  when  the  wind  walks,  too; 

A  shadowy  highway  cool  and  brown, 
Alluring  up  and  enticing  down 

From  rippled  water  to  dappled  swamp, 
From  purple  glory  to  scarlet  pomp; 

The  outward  eye,  the  quiet  will, 
And  the  striding  heart  from  hill  to  hill; 

The  tempter  apple  over  the  fence; 
The  cobweb  bloom  on  the  yellow  quince; 

The  palish  asters  along  the  wood,  — 
A  lyric  touch  of  the  solitude  ; 

[9] 


BLISS  CARMAN 


An  open  hand,  an  easy  shoe, 
Andahopeto  make  the  day  go  through^ — 

Another  to  sleep  -with,  and  a  third 
To  wake  me  up  at  the  voice  of  a  bird; 

The  resonant  far-listening  morn, 
And  the  hoarse  whisper  of  the  corn; 

The  crickets  mourning  their  comrades 

lost, 
In  the  night's  retreat  from  the  gathering 

frost; 

(  Or  is  it  their  slogan ,  plaintive  and  shrill, 
As  they  beat  on  their  corselets,  valiant 
still?} 

A  hunger  Jit  for  the  kings  of  the  sea, 
And  a  loaf  of  bread  for  Dickon  and  me  ; 

A  thirst  like  that  of  the  Thirsty  Sword, 
And  a  jug  of  cider  on  the  board; 

[  10] 


BLISS   CARMAN 


An  idle  noon,  a  bubbling  spring, 
The  sea  in  the  pine-tops  murmuring; 

A  scrap  of  gossip  at  the  ferry  ; 

A  comrade  neither  glum  nor  merry, 

Asking  nothing,  revealing  naught, 
But  minting  his  words  from  a  fund  of 
thought, 

A  keeper  of  silence  eloquent, 
Needy,  yet  royally  "well  content, 

Of  the  mettled  breed,  yet  abhorring  strife, 
And  full  of  the  mellow  juice  of  life, 

A  taster  of  wine,  with  an  eye  for  a  maid, 
Never  too  bold,  and  never  afraid, 

Never  heart-whole,  never  heart-sick, 
(  These  are  the  things  I  worship  in  Dick] 

Nojidget  and  no  reformer,  just 
A  calm  observer  of  ought  and  must, 


BLISS   CARMAN 


A  lover  of  books,  but  a  reader  of  man, 
No  cynic  and  no  charlatan , 

Who  never  defers  and  never  demands, 
But,   smiling,   takes  the  -world  in  his 
hands, — 

Seeing  it  good  as  when  God  first  saw 
And  gave  it  the  weight  of  His  will  for  law. 

And  0  the  joy  that  is  never  won, 
But  follows  and  follows  the  journeying 
sun, 

By  marsh  and  tide,   by  meadow  and 

stream, 
A  will-o? -the- wind,  a  light-o'* -dream, 

Delusion  afar,  delight  anear, 
From  morrow  to  morrow,  from  year  to 
year, 

A  jack-o } -lantern,  afairyjlre, 
A  dare,  a  bliss,  and  a  desire! 


BLISS  CARMAN 


The  racy  smell  of  the  forest  loam, 
When  the  stealthy,  sad-heart  leaves  go 
home; 

(O  leaves,  0  leaves,  I  am  one  with  you, 
Of  the  mould  and  the  sun  and  the  wind 
and  the  dew!} 

The  broad  gold  wake  of  the  afternoon; 
The  silent  fleck  of  the  cold  new  moon; 

The  sound  of  the  hollow  sea^s  release 
From  stormy  tumult  to  starry  peace; 

With  only  another  league  to  wend; 
And  two  brown  arms  at  the  journey 's 
end! 

These  are  the  joys  of  the  open  road — 
For  him  who  travels  without  a  load. 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY 

WILLIAM   HAZLITT 

ONE  of  the  pleasantest  things  in  the 
world  is  going  a  journey;  but  I  like  to 
go  by  myself.  I  can  enjoy  society  in  a  room; 
but  out  of  doors,  nature  is  company  enough 
for  me.  I  am  then  never  less  alone  than 
when  alone. 

The  fields  his  study,  nature  <was  his  book. 

I  cannot  see  the  wit  of  walking  and  talking 
at  the  same  time.  When  I  am  in  the  coun- 
try, I  wish  to  vegetate  like  the  country.  I  am 
not  for  criticising  hedgerows  and  black  cat- 
tle. I  go  out  of  town  in  order  to  forget  the, 
town  and  all  that  is  in  it.  There  are  those 
who  for  this  purpose  go  to  watering-places, 
and  carry  the  metropolis  with  them.  I  like 
more  elbow-room, and  fewer  encumbrances. 
I  like  solitude,  when  I  give  myself  up  to  it, 
for  the  sake  of  solitude;  nor  do  I  ask  for 

a  friend  in  my  retreat. 
Whom  I  may  whisper  solitude  is  sweet. 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


The  soul  of  a  journey  is  liberty,  perfect 
liberty,  to  think,  feel,  do  just  as  one  pleases. 
We  go  a  journey  chiefly  to  be  free  of  all  im- 
pediments and  of  all  inconveniences ;  to  leave 
ourselves  behind,  much  more  to  get  rid  of 
others.  It  is  because  I  want  a  little  breathing- 
space  to  muse  on  indifferent  matters,  where 
Contemplation 

May  plume  her  feathers  and  let  grow  her  wings 9 

That  in  the  various  bustle  of  resort 

Were  all  too  ruffled,  and  sometimes  impaired, 

that  I  absent  myself  from  the  town  for  a 
while,  without  feeling  at  a  loss  the  moment 
I  am  left  by  myself.  Instead  of  a  friend  in 
a  post-chaise  or  in  a  Tilbury,  to  exchange 
good  things  with,  and  vary  the  same  stale 
topics  over  again,  for  once  let  me  have  a  truce 
with  impertinence.  Give  me  the  clear  blue 
sky  over  my  head,  and  the  green  turf  beneath 
my  feet,  a  winding  road  before  me,  and  a 
three  hours'  march  to  dinner — and  then  to 
thinking!  It  is  hard  if  I  cannot  start  some 
game  bn  these  lone  heaths.  I  laugh,  I  run, 
I  leap,  I  sing  for  joy.  From  the  point  of  yon- 

C'S] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


der  rolling  cloud  I  plunge  into  my  past  being, 
and  revel  there,  as  the  sun-burnt  Indian 
plunges  headlong  into  the  wave  that  wafts 
him  to  his  native  shore.  Then  long-forgotten 
things, like  "sunken  wrack  and  sumless  treas- 
uries," burst  upon  my  eager  sight,  and  I  begin 
to  feel,  think,  and  be  myself  again.  Instead 
of  an  awkward  silence,  broken  by  attempts 
at  wit  or  dull  common-places,  mine  is  that 
undisturbed  silence  of  the  heart  which  alone 
is  perfect  eloquence.  No  one  likes  puns,  al- 
literations, antitheses,  argument,  and  analy- 
sis better  than  I  do;  but  I  sometimes  had 
rather  be  without  them.  "Leave,  oh,  leave 
me  to  my  repose!  "  I  have  just  now  other 
business  in  hand,  which  would  seem  idle  to 
you,  but  is  with  me  "very  stuff  of  the  con- 
science." Is  not  this  wild  rose  sweet  with- 
out a  comment  ?  Does  not  this  daisy  leap  to 
my  heart  set  in  its  coat  of  emerald?  Yet  if 
I  were  to  explain  to  you  the  circumstance 
that  has  so  endeared  it  to  me,  you  would 
only  smile.  Had  I  not  better  then  \keep  it 
to  myself,  and  let  it  serve  me  to  brood  over, 
from  here  to  yonder  craggy  point,  and  from 

[  16] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


thence  onward  to  the  far-distant  horizon  ? 
I  should  be  but  bad  company  all  that  way, 
and  therefore  prefer  being  alone.  I  have 
heard  it  said  that  you  may,  when  the  moody 
fit  comes  on,  walk  or  ride  on  by  yourself, 
and  indulge  your  reveries.  But  this  looks 
like  a  breach  of  manners,  a  neglect  of  others, 
and  you  are  thinking  all  the  time  that  you 
ought  to  rejoin  your  party.  "Out  upon-such 
half-faced  fellowship,"  say  I.  I  like  to  be 
either  entirely  to  myself,  or  entirely  at  the 
disposal  of  others;  to  talk  or  be  silent,  to 
walk  or  sit  still,  to  be  sociable  or  solitary. 
.  I  was  pleased  with  an  observation  of  Mr. 
Cobbett's,  that  "he  thought  it  a  bad  French 
custom  to  drink  our  wine  with  our  meals, 
and  that  an  Englishman  ought  to  do  only 
one  thing  at  a  time."  So  I  cannot  talk  and 
think,  or  indulge  in  melancholy  musing  and 
lively  conversation  by  fits  and  starts.  "Let 
me  have  a  companion  of  my  way,"  says 
Sterne,  "were  it  but  to  remark  how  the 
shadows  lengthen  as  the  sun  declines."  It 
is  beautifully  said;  but,  in  my  opinion,  this 
continual  comparing  of  notes  interferes  with 

[-7] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


the  involuntary  impression  of  things  upon 
the  mind,  and  hurts  the  sentiment.  If  you 
only  hint  what  you  feel  in  a  kind  of  dumb 
show,  it  is  insipid;  if  you  have  to  explain 
it,  it  is  making  a  toil  of  a  pleasure.  You 
cannot  read  the  book  of  nature  without  be- 
ing perpetually  put  to  the  trouble  of  trans- 
lating it  for  the  benefit  of  others.  I  am  for 
the  synthetical  method  on  a  journey,  in  pre- 
ference to  the  analytical.  I  am  content  to 
lay  in  a  stock  of  ideas  then,  and  to  examine 
and  anatomise  them  afterwards.  I  want  to 
see  my  vague  notions  float  like  the  down 
of  the  thistle  before  the  breeze,  and  not  to 
have  them  entangled  in  the  briars  and  thorns 
of  controversy.  For  once,  I  like  to  have  it 
all  my  own  way;  and  this  is  impossible 
unless  you  are  alone,  or  in-  such  company  as 
I  do  not  covet.  I  have  no  objection  to  argue 
a  point  with  any  one  for  twenty  miles  of 
measured  road,  but  not  for  pleasure5If  you 
remark  the  scent  of  a  bean-field  crossing  the 
road,  perhaps  your  fellow-traveller  has  no 
smell.  If  you  point  to  a  distant  object,  per- 
haps he  is  short-sighted,  and  has  to  take  out 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


his  glass  to  look  at  it.  There  is  a  feeling 
I  in  the  air,  a  tone  in  the  colour  of  a  cloud, 
which  hits  your  fancy,  but  the  effect  of 
which  you  are  unable  to  account  for.  There 
is  then  no  sympathy,  but  an  uneasy  craving 
after  it,  and  a  dissatisfaction  which  pursues 
you  on  the  way,  and  in  the  end  probably  pro- 
duces ill-humour.  Now  I  never  quarrel  with 
myself,  and  take  all  my  own  conclusions 
for  granted  till  I  find  it  necessary  to  defend 
them  against  objections.  It  is  not  merely 
that  you  may  not  be  of  accord  on  the  objects 
and  circumstances  that  present  themselves 
before  you — these  may  recall  a  number  of 
objects,  and  lead  to  associations  too  delicate 
and  refined  to  be  possibly  communicated 
to  others.  Yet  these  I  love  to  cherish,  and 
sometimes  still  fondly  clutch  them,  when  I 
can  escape  from  the  throng  to  do  so.  To 
give  way  to  our  feelings  before  company 
seems  extravagance  or  affectation ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  have  to  unravel  this  mys- 
tery of  our  being  at  every  turn,  and  to  make 
others  take  an  equal  interest  in  it  (otherwise 
the  end  is  not  answered),  is  a  task  to  which 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


few  are  competent.  We  must  "give  it  an  un- 
derstanding, but  no  tongue."  My  old  friend 
Coleridge,  however,  could  do  both.  He  could 
go  on  in  the  most  delightful  explanatory 
way  over  hill  and  dale,  a  summer's  day,  and 
convert  a  landscape  into  a  didactic  poem  or 
a  Pindaric  ode.  "  He  talked  far  above  sing- 
ing." If  I  could  so  clothe  my  ideas  in  sound- 
ing and  flowing  words,  I  might  perhaps  wish 
to  have  some  one  with  me  to  admire  the 
swelling  theme;  or  I  could  be  more  content, 
were  it  possible  for  me  still  to  hear  his  echo- 
ing voice  in  the  woods  of  All-Foxden.*They 
had  u  that  fine  madness  in  them  which  our 
first  poets  had";  and  if  they  could  have  been 
caught  by  some  rare  instrument,  would  have 
breathed  such  strains  as  the  following: 

Here  be  woods  as  green 
As  any,  air  likewise  as  fresh  and  sweet 
As  when  smooth  Zephyr  us  plays  on  the  fleet 
face  of  the  curled  stream,  'with  flow  rs  as  many 
As  the  young  spring  gives,  and  as  choice  as  any  ; 
Here  be  all  new  delights,  cool  streams  and  wells, 

*  Near  Nether-Stowey,  Somersetshire,  where  the  author  of 
this  Essay  visited  Coleridge  in  1798.  He  was  there  again 
in  1803. 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


Arbours  overgrown  with  woodbine,  carves  and  dells  j 
Choose  where  thou  wilt,  while  I  sit  by  and  sing, 
Or  gather  rushes  to  make  many  a  ring 
For  thy  long  fingers ;  tell  thee  tales  oj '  lo<ve, 
How  the  pale  Phoebe,  hunting  in  a  grove, 
First  saw  the  boy  Endymion,from  whose  eyes 
She  took  eternal  fire  that  never  dies  ; 
How  she  conveyed  him  softly  in  a  sleep , 
His  temples  bound  with  poppy,  to  the  steep 
Head  of  old  Latmos,  where  she  stoops  each  night, 
Gilding  the  mountain  with  her  brother's  light, 
To  kiss  her  sweetest.* 

Had  I  words  and  images  at  command  like 
these,  I  would  attempt  to  wake  the  thoughts 
that  lie  slumbering  on  golden  ridges  in  the 
evening  clouds:  but  at  the  sight  of  nature 
my  fancy,  poor  as  it  is,  droops  and  closes  up 
its  leaves,  like  flowers  at  sunset.  I  can  make 
nothing  out  on  the  spot :  I  must  have  time  to 
collect  myself. 

In  general,  a  good  thing  spoils  out-of- 
door  prospects:  it  should  be  reserved  for 
Table-talk.  Lamb  is  for  this  reason,  I  take 
it,  the  worst  company  in  the  world  out  of 
doors;  because  he  is  the  best  within.  I  grant 

*  Fletcher's  Faithful  Shepherdess,  i.  3  (Dyce's  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  ii.  38,  39). 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


there  is  one  subject  on  which  it  is  pleasant 
to  talk  on  a  journey,  and  that  is,  what  one 
shall  have  for  supper  when  we  get  to  our 
inn  at  night.  The  open  air  improves  this 
sort  of  conversation  or  friendly  altercation, 
by  setting  a  keener  edge  on  appetite.  Every 
mile  of  the  road  heightens  the  flavour  of 
the  viands  we  expect  at  the  end  of  it.  How 
fine  it  is  to  enter  some  old  town,  walled  and 
turreted,  just  at  the  approach  of  nightfall, 
or  to  come  to  some  straggling  village,  with 
the  lights  streaming  through  the  surround- 
ing gloom;  and  then,  after  inquiring  for  the 
best  entertainment  that  the  place  affords, 
to  "take  one's  ease  at  one's  inn"!  These 
eventful  moments  in  our  lives'  history  are 
too  precious,  too  full  of  solid,  heartfelt  hap- 
piness to  be  frittered  and  dribbled  away  in 
imperfect  sympathy.  I  wc/uld  have  them  all 
to  myself,  and  drain  them  to  the  last  drop: 
they  will  do  to  talk  of  or  to  write  about 
afterwards.  What  a  delicate  speculation  it 
is,  after  drinking  whole  goblets  of  tea — 

The  cups  that  cheer,  but  not  inebriate  — 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


and  letting  the  fumes  ascend  into  the  brain, 
to  sit  considering  what  we  shall  have  for 
supper —  eggs  and  a  rasher,  a  rabbit  smoth- 
ered in  onions,  or  an  excellent  veal  cutlet! 
Sancho  in  such  a  situation  once  fixed  upon 
cow-heel;  and  his  choice,  though  he  could 
not  help  it,  is  not  to  be  disparaged.  Then,  in 
the  intervals  of  pictured  scenery  and  Shan- 
dean  contemplation,  to  catch  the  prepara- 
tion and  the  stir  in  the  kitchen  [getting 
ready  for  the  gentleman  in  the  parlour], 
Procul,  0  procul  este  profani!  These  hours 
are  sacred  to  silence  and  to  musing,  to  be 
treasured  up  in  the  memory,  and  to  feed  the 
source  of  smiling  thoughts  hereafter.  I  would 
not  waste  them  in  idle  talk;  or  if  I  must 
have  the  integrity  of  fancy  broken  in  upon, 
I  would  rather  it  were  by  a  stranger  than  a 
friend.  A  stranger  takes  his  hue  and  char- 
acter from  the  time  and  place;  he  is  a  part 
of  the  furniture  and  costume  of  an  inn.  If 
he  is  a  Quaker,  or  from  the  West  Riding 
of  Yorkshire,  so  much  the  better.  I  do  not 
even  try  to  sympathise  with  him,  and  he 
breaks  no  squares.  [How  I  love  to  see  the 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


camps  of  the  gypsies,  and  to  sigh  my  soul 
into  that  sort  of  life.  If  I  express  this  feel- 
ing to  another,  he  may  qualify  and  spoil  it 
with  some  objection.]  I  associate  nothing 
with  my  travelling  companion  but  present 
objects  and  passing  events.  In  his  ignorance 
of  me  and  my  affairs,  I  in  a  manner  forget 
myself.  But  a  friend  reminds  one  of  other 
things,  rips  up  old  grievances,  and  destroys 
the  abstraction  of  the  scene.  He  comes  in 
ungraciously  between  us  and  our  imaginary 
character.  Something  is  dropped  in  the  course 
of  conversation  that  gives  a  hint  of  your  pro- 
fession and  pursuits;  or  from  having  some 
one  with  you  that  knows  the  less  sublime 
portions  of  your  history,  it  seems  that  other 
people  do.  You  are  no  longer  a  citizen  of 
the  world;  but  your  "unhoused  free  con- 
dition is  put  into  circumscription  and  con- 
fine." The  incognito  of  an  inn  is  one  of  its 
striking  privileges — "lord  of  one's  self,  un- 
cumber'd  with  a  name."  Oh!  it  is  great  to 
shake  off  the  trammels  of  the  world  and  of 
public  opinion — to  lose  our  importunate, 
tormenting,  everlasting  personal  identity  in 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


the  elements  of  nature,  and  become  the 
creature  of  the  moment,  clear  of  all  ties — to 
hold  to  the  universe  only  by  a  dish  of  sweet- 
breads, and  to  owe  nothing  but  the  score 
of  the  evening — and  no  longer  seeking  for 
applause  and  meeting  with  contempt,  to  be 
known  by  no  other  title  than  the  Gentleman 
in  the  parlour!  One  may  take  one's  choice 
of  all  characters  in  this  romantic  state  of 
uncertainty  as  to  one's  real  pretensions,  and 
become  indefinitely  respectable  and  nega- 
tively right  worshipful.  We  baffle  prejudice 
and  disappoint  conjecture;  and  from  being 
so  to  others,  begin  to  be  objects  of  curiosity 
and  wonder  even  to  ourselves.  We  are  no 
more  those  hackneyed  common-places  that 
we  appear  in  the  world;  an  inn  restores  us 
to  the  level  of  nature,  and  quits  scores  with 
society !  I  have  certainly  spent  some  envi- 
able hours  at  inns — sometimes  when  I  have 
been  left  entirely  to  myself,  and  have  tried 
to  solve  some  metaphysical  problem,  as  once 
at  Witham  Common,  where  I  found  out 
the  proof  that  likeness  is  not  a  case  of  the 
association  of  ideas  —  at  other  times,  when 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


there  have  been  pictures  in  the  room,  as-at 
St.  Neot's  (I  think  it  was),  where  I  first  met 
with  Gribelin's  engravings  of  the  Cartoons, 
into  which  I  entered  at  once,  and  at  a  little 
inn  on  the  borders  of  Wales,  where  there 
happened  to  be  hanging  some  of  WestalPs 
drawings,  which  I  compared  triumphantly 
(for  a  theory  that  I  had,  not  for  the  admired 
artist)  with  the  figure  of  a  girl  who  had  fer- 
ried me  over  the  Severn,  standing  up  in  the 
boat  between  me  and  the  twilight — at  other 
times  I  might  mention  luxuriating  in  books, 
with  a  peculiar  interest  in  this  way,  as  I 
remember  sitting  up  half  the  night  to  read 
Paul  and  Virginia,  which  I  picked  up  at  an 
inn  at  Bridgewater,  after  being  drenched  in 
the  rain  all  day;  and  at  the  same  place  I 
got  through  two  volumes  of  Madame  d'Ar- 
blay's  Camilla.  It  was  on  the  loth  of  April 
1798  that  I  sat  down  to  a  volume  of  the 
New  Eloise,  at  the  inn  at  Llangollen,  over 
a  bottle  of  sherry  and  a  cold  chicken.  The 
letter  I  chose  was  that  in  which  St.  Preux 
describes  his  feelings  as  he  first  caught  a 
glimpse  from  the  heights  of  the  Jura  of  the 

[*«] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


Pays  de  Vaud,  which  I  had  brought  with 
me  as  a  bon  bouche  to  crown  the  evening 
with.  It  was  my  birthday,  and  I  had  for  the 
first  time  come  from  a  place  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood to  visit  this  delightful  spot.  The 
road  to  Llangollen  turns  off  between  Chirk 
and  Wrexham ;  and  on  passing  a  certain 
point  you  come  all  at  once  upon  the  valley, 
which  opens  like  an  amphitheatre,  broad, 
barren  hills  rising  in  majestic  state  on  either 
side,  with  "green  upland  swells  that  echo 
to  the  bleat  of  flocks"  below,  and  the  river 
Dee  babbling  over  its  stony  bed  in  the  midst 
of  them.  The  valley  at  this  time  "glittered 
green  with  sunny  showers,"  and  a  budding 
ash-tree  dipped  its  tender  branches  in  the 
chiding  stream.  How  proud,  how  glad  I  was 
to  walk  along  the  high  road  that  overlooks  the 
delicious  prospect,  repeating  the  lines  which 
I  have  just  quoted  from  Mr.  Coleridge's  po- 
ems!  But  besides  the  prospect  which  opened 
beneath  my  feet,  another  also  opened  to  my 
inward  sight,  a  heavenly  vision,  on  which 
were  written,  in  letters  large  as  Hope  could 
make  them,  these  four  words,  LIBERTY, 

['7] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


GENIUS,  LOVE,  VIRTUE;  which  have  since 
faded  into  the  light  of  common  day,  or  mock 

my  idle  gaze. 
• 

The  beautiful  is  vanished,  and  returns  not. 

Still  I  would  return  some  time  or  other  to 
this  enchanted  spot;  but  I  would  return  to  it 
alone.  What  other  self  could  I  find  to  share 
that  influx  of  thoughts,  of  regret,  and  delight, 
the  fragments  of  which  I  could  hardly  con- 
jure up  to  myself,  so  much  have  they  been 
broken  and  defaced!  I  could  stand  on  some 
tall  rock,  and  overlook  the  precipice  of  years 
that  separates  me  from  what  I  then  was.  I 
was  at  that  time  going  shortly  to  visit  the 
poet  whom  I  have  above  named.  Where  is 
he  now?  Not  only  I  myself  have  changed; 
the  world,  which  was  then  new  to  me,  has 
become  old  and  incorrigible.  Yet  will  I  turn 
to  thee  in  thought,  O  sylvan  Dee,  in  joy, 
in  youth  and  gladness  as  thou  then  wert; 
and  thou  shalt  always  be  to  me  the  river  of 
Paradise,  where  I  will  drink  of  the  waters 
of  life  freely ! 

There  is  hardly  anything  that  shows,  the 

[*'  1 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


short-sightedness  or  capriciousness  of  the 
imagination  more  than  travelling  does.  With 
change  of  place  we  change  our  ideas;  nay, 
our  opinions  and  feelings.  We  can  by  an 
effort  indeed  transport  ourselves  to  old  and 
long-forgotten  scenes,  and  then  the  picture  of 
the  mind  revives  again ;  but  we  forget  those 
that  we  have  just  left.  It  seems  that  we  can 
think  but  of  one  place  at  a  time.  The  can- 
vas of  the  fancy  is  but  of  a  certain  extent, 
and  if  we  paint  one  set  of  objects  upon  it, 
they  immediately  efface  every  other.  We  can- 
not enlarge  our  conceptions,  we  only  shift 
our  point  of  view.  The  landscape  bares  its 
bosom  to  the  enraptured  eye,  we  take  our  fill 
of  it,  and  seem  as  if  we  could  form  no  other 
image  of  beauty  or  grandeur.  We  pass  on, 
and  think  no  more  of  it:  the  horizon  that 
shuts  it  from  our  sight  also  blots  it  from  our 
memory  like  a  dream.  In  travelling  through 
a  wild  barren  country  I  can  form  no  idea  of 
a  woody  and  cultivated  one.  It  appears  to 
me  that  all  the  world  must  be  barren,  like 
what  I  see  of  it.  In  the  country  we  forget 
the  town,  and  in  town  we  despise  the  coun- 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


try.  "  Beyond  Hyde  Park,"  says  Sir  Fopling 
Flutter,  "all  is  a  desert."  All  that  part  of  the 
map  that  we  do  not  see  before  us  is  a  blank. 
The  world  in  our  conceit  of  it  is  not  much 
bigger  than  a  nutshell.  It  is  not  one  prospect 
expanded  into  another,  county  joined  to 
county,  kingdom  to  kingdom,  lands  to  seas, 
making  an  image  voluminous  and  vast; — 
the  mind  can  form  no  larger  idea  of  space 
than  the  eye  can  take  in  at  a  single  glance. 
The  rest  is  a  name  written  in  a  map,  a  cal- 
culation of  arithmetic.  For  instance,  what  is 
the  true  signification  of  that  immense  mass 
of  territory  and  population  known  by  the 
name  of  China  to  us?  An  inch  of  pasteboard 
on  a  wooden  globe,  of  no  more  account  than 
a  China  orange !  Things  near  us  are  seen  of 
the  size  of  life :  things  at  a  distance  are  dimin- 
ished to  the  size  of  the  understanding.  We 
measure  the  universe  by  ourselves,  and  even 
comprehend  the  texture  of  our  own  being 
only  piecemeal.  In  this  way,  however,  we 
remember  an  infinity  of  things  and  places. 
The  mind  is  like  a  mechanical  instrument 
that  plays  a  great  variety  of  tunes,  but  it  must 

[so] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


play  them  in  succession.  One  idea  recalls 
another,  but  it  at  the  same  time  excludes  all 
others.  In  trying  to  renew  old  recollections, 
we  cannot  as  it  were  unfold  the  whole  web 
of  our  existence;  we  must  pick  out  the  single 
threads.  So  in  coming  to  a  place  where  we 
have  formerly  lived,  and  with  which  we  have 
intimate  associations,  every  one  must  have 
found  that  the  feeling  grows  more  vivid  the 
nearer  we  approach  the  spot,  from  the  mere 
anticipation  of  the  actual  impression:  we 
remember  circumstances,  feelings,  persons, 
faces,  names,  that  we  had  not  thought  of  for 
years ;  but  for  the  time  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  forgotten ! — To  return  to  the  que$- 
tion  I  have  quitted  above. 

I  have  no  objection  to  go  to  see  ruins, 
aqueducts,  pictures,  in  company  with  a 
friend  or  a  party,  but  rather  the  contrary,  for 
the  former  reason  reversed.  They  are  intel- 
ligible matters,  and  will  bear  talking  about. 
The  sentiment  here  is  not  tacit,  but  com- 
municable and  overt.  Salisbury  Plain- is  bar- 
ren of  criticism,  but  Stonehenge  will  bear  a 
discussion  antiquarian,  picturesque,  and  phi- 

[   3-    ] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


losophical.  In  setting  out  on  a  party  of  plea- 
sure, the  first  consideration  always  is  where 
we  shall  go  to:  in  taking  a  solitary  ramble, 
the  question  is  what  we  shall  meet  with  by 
the  way.  "The  mind  is  its  own  place";  nor 
are  we  anxious  to  arrive  at  the  end  of  our 
journey.  I  can  myself  do  the  honours  indif- 
ferently well  to  works  of  art  and  curiosity. 
I  once  took  a  party  to  Oxford  with  no  mean 
eclat — showed  them  that  seat  of  the  Muses 
at  a  distance, 

With  glistering  spires  and  pinnacles  adorn  d — 

descanted  on  the  learned  air  that  breathes 
from  the  grassy  quadrangles  and  stone  walls 
of  halls  and  colleges — was  at  home  in  the 
Bodleian;  and  at  Blenheim  quite  superseded 
the  powdered  Cicerone  that  attended  us, and 
that  pointed  in  vain  with  his  wand  to  com- 
mon-place beauties  in  matchless  pictures.  As 
another  exception  to  the  above  reasoning, 
I  should  not  feel  confident  in  venturing  on 
a  journey  in  a  foreign  country  without  a  com- 
panion. I  should  want  at  intervals  to  hear 
the  sound  of  my  own  language.  There  is 

t  3»] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


an  involuntary  antipathy  in  the  mind  of  an 
Englishman  to  foreign  manners  and  notions 
that  requires  the  assistance  of  social  sym- 
pathy to  carry  it  off.  As  the  distance  from 
home  increases,  this  relief,  which  was  at  first 
a  luxury,  becomes  a  passion  and  an  appe- 
tite. A  person  would  almost  feel  stifled  to 
find  himself  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia  with- 
out friends  and  countrymen :  there  must  be 
allowed  to  be  something  in  the  view  of 
Athens  or  old  Rome  that  claims  the  utter- 
ance of  speech;  and  I  own  that  the  Pyra- 
mids are  too  mighty  for  any  single  contem- 
plation. In  such  situations,  so  opposite  to 
all  one's  ordinary  train  of  ideas,  one  seems 
a  species  by  one's-self,  a  limb  torn  off  from 
society,  unless  one  can  meet  with  instant 
fellowship  and  support.  Yet  I  did  not  feel 
this  want  or  craving  very  pressing  once, 
when  I  first  set  my  foot  on  the  laughing 
shores  of  France.  Calais  was  peopled  with 
novelty  and  delight.  The  confused,  busy 
murmur  of  the  place  was  like  oil  and  wine 
poured  into  my  ears;  nor  did  the  manners' 
hymn,  which  was  sung  from  the  top  of  an 

[33] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


old  crazy  vessel  in  the  harbour,  as  the  sun 
went  down,  send  an  alien  sound  into  my 
soul.  I  only  breathed  the  air  of  general  hu- 
manity. I  walked  over  uthe  vine-covered 
hills  and  gay  regions  of  France,"  erect  and 
satisfied;  for  the  image  of  man  was  not  cast 
down  and  chained  to  the  foot  of  arbitrary 
thrones :  I  was  at  no  loss  for  language,  for 
that  of  all  the  great  schools  of  painting  was 
open  to  me.  The  whole  is  vanished  like  a 
shade.  Pictures,  heroes,  glory,  freedom,  all 
are  fled :  nothing  remains  but  the  Bourbons 
and  the  French  people!" — There  is  undoubt- 
edly a  sensation  in  travelling  into  foreign 
parts  that  is  to  be  had  nowhere  else;  but 
it  is  more  pleasing  at  the  time  than  lasting. 
It  is  too  remote  from  our  habitual  associa- 
tions to  be  a  common  topic  of  discourse  or 
reference,  and,  like  a  dream  or  another  state 
of  existence,  does  not  piece  into  our  daily 
modes  of  life.  It  is  an  animated  but  a  mo- 
mentary hallucination.  It  demands  an  effort 
to  exchange  our  actual  for  our  ideal  identity; 
and  to  feel  the  pulse  of  our  old  transports 
revive  very  keenly,  we  must  "jump  "  all  our 

[34] 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


present  comforts  and  connections.  Our  ro- 
mantic and  itinerant  character  is  not  to  be 
domesticated.  Dr.  Johnson  remarked  how 
little  foreign  travel  added  to  the  facilities  of 
conversation  in  those  who  had  been  abroad. 
In  fact,  the  time  we  have  spent  there  is 
both  delightful  and  in  one  sense  instructive; 
but  it  appeals  to  be  cut  out  of  our  substan- 
tial, downright  existence,  and  never  to  join 
kindly  on  to  it.  We  are  not  the  same,  but 
another,  and  perhaps  more  enviable  individ- 
ual, all  the  time  we  are  out  of  our  own  coun- 
try. We  are  lost  to  ourselves,  as  well  as  our 
friends.  So  the  poet  somewhat  quaintly  sings : 

Out  of  my  country  and  myself  I  go. 

Those  who  wish  to  forget  painful  thoughts, 
do  well  to  absent  themselves  for  a  while 
from  the  ties  and  objects  that  recall  them; 
but  we  can  be  said  only  to  fulfil  our  destiny 
in  the  place  that  gave  us  birth.  I  should  on 
this  account  like  well  enough  to  spend  the 
whole  of  my  life  in  travelling  abroad,  if  I 
could  anywhere  borrow  another  life  to  spend 
afterwards  at  home! 

[35] 


THE  VAGABOND 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 


me  the  life  I  love, 

Let  the  lave  go  by  me, 
Give  the  jolly  heaven  above 

And  the  byway  nigh  me. 
Bed  in  the  bush  with  stars  to  see, 

Bread  I  dip  in  the  river  — 
There's  the  life  for  a  man  like  me, 

There**  s  the  life  for  ever. 


Let  the  blow  fall  soon  or  late, 

Let  what  will  be  o'er  me; 
Give  the  face  of  earth  around 

And  the  road  before  me. 
Wealth  I  seek  not,  hope  nor  love, 

Nor  a  friend  to  know  me; 
All  I  seek,  the  heaven  above 

And  the  road  below  me. 

[36] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Or  let  autumn  fall  on  me 

Where  afield  I  linger, 
Silencing  the  bird  on  tree, 

Siting  the  blue  finger. 
White  as  meal  the  frosty  field — 

Warm  the  fireside  haven  — 
Not  to  autumn  will  I  yield, 

Not  to  winter  even! 


Let  the  blow  fall  soon  or  late, 

Let  what  will  be  o^er  me; 
Give  the  face  of  earth  around, 

And  the  road  before  me. 
Wealth  I  ask  not,  hope  nor  love, 

Nor  a  friend  to  know  me; 
All  I  ask,  the  heaven  above 

And  the  road  below  me. 


[37] 


WALKING  TOURS 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

IT  must  not  be  imagined  that  a  walking 
tour,  as  some  would  have  us  fancy,  is 
merely  a  better  or  worse  way  of  seeing  the 
country.  There  are  many  ways  of  seeing 
landscape  quite  as  good;  and  none  more 
vivid,  in  spite  of  canting  dilettantes,  than 
from  a  railway  train.  But  landscape  on  a 
walking  tour  is  quite  accessory.  He  who  is 
indeed  of  the  brotherhood  does  not  voyage 
in  quest  of  the  picturesque,  but  of  certain 
jolly  humours — of  the  hope  and  spirit  with 
which  the  march  begins  at  morning,  and  the 
peace  and  spiritual  repletion  of  the  evening's 
rest.  He  cannot  tell  whether  he  puts  his  knap- 
sack on,  or  takes  it  off,  with  more  delight. 
The  excitement  of  the  departure  puts  him 
in  key  for  that  of  the  arrival.  Whatever  he 
does  is  not  only  a  reward  in  itself,  but  will 
be  further  rewarded  in  the  sequel;  and  so 
pleasure  leads  on  to  pleasure  in  an  endless 
chain.  It  is  this  that  so  few  can  understand; 
they  will  either  be  always  lounging  or  always 

[38] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

at  five  miles  an  hour;  they  do  not  play  off 
the  one  against  the  other,  prepare  all  day  for 
the  evening,  and  all  evening  for  the  next 
day.  And,  above  all,  it  is  here  that  your  over- 
walker  fails  of  comprehension.  His  heart 
rises  against  those  who  drink  their  curacoa 
in  liqueur  glasses,  when  he  himself  can  swill 
it  in  a  brown  John.  He  will  not  believe  that 
the  flavour  is  more  delicate  in  the  smaller 
dose.  He  will  not  believe  that  to  walk  this 
unconscionable  distance  is  merely  to  stupefy 
and  brutalise  himself,  and  come  to  his  inn, 
at  night,  with  a  sort  of  frost  on  his  five  wits, 
and  a  starless  night  of  darkness  in  his  spirit. 
Not  for  him  the  mild  luminous  evening  of 
the  temperate  walker!  He  has  nothing  left 
of  man  but  a  physical  need  for  bedtime  and 
a  double  nightcap;  and  even  his  pipe,  if  he 
be  a  smoker,  will  be  savourless  and  disen- 
chanted. It  is  the  fate  of  such  an  one  to  take 
twice  as  much  trouble  as  is  needed  to  obtain 
happiness,  and  miss  the  happiness  in  the 
end;  he  is  the  man  of  the  proverb,  in  short, 
who  goes  farther  and  fares  worse. 

Now,  to  be  properly  enjoyed,  a  walking 

[  39  ] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

tour  should  be  gone  upon  alone.  If  you  go 
in  a  company,  or  even  in  pairs,  it  is  no  longer 
a  walking  tour  in  anything  but  name;  it  is 
something  else,  and  more  in  the  nature  of 
a  picnic.  A  walking  tour  should  be  gone  upon 
alone,  because  freedom  is  of  the  essence; 
because  you  should  be  able  to  stop  and  go 
on,  and  follow  this  way  or  that,  as  the  freak 
takes  you;  and  because  you  must  have  your 
own  pace,  and  neither  trot  alongside  a  cham- 
pion walker,  nor  mince  in  time  with  a  girl. 
And  then  you  must  be  open  to  all  impres- 
sions, and  let  your  thoughts  take  colour  from 
what  you  see.  You  should  be  as  a  pipe  for 
any  wind  to  play  upon.  "  I  cannot  see  the 
wit,"  says  Hazlitt,  "of  walking  and  talking 
at  the  same  time.  When  I  am  in  the  country 
I  wish  to  vegetate  like  the  country,"  which 
is  the  gist  of  all  that  can  be  said  upon  the 
matter.  There  should  be  no  cackle  of  voices 
at  your  elbow,to  jar  on  the  meditative  silence 
of  the  morning.  And  so  long  as  a  man  is 
reasoning  he  cannot  surrender  himself  to 
that  fine  intoxication  that  comes  of  much 
motion  in  the  open  air,  that  begins  in  a  sort 

[40] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

of  a  dazzle  and  sluggishness  of  the  brain, and 
ends  in  a  peace  that  passes  comprehension. 
During  the  first  day  or  so  of  any  tour  there 
are  moments  of  bitterness,  when  the  travel- 
ler feels  more  than  coldly  towards  his  knap- 
sack, when  he  is  half  in  a  mind  to  throw  it 
bodily  over  the  hedge,  and,  like  Christian 
on  a  similar  occasion,  "give  three  leaps  and 
go  on  singing."  And  yet  it  soon  acquires  a 
property  of  easiness.  It  becomes  magnetic; 
the  spirit  of  the  journey  enters  into  it.  And  no 
sooner  have  you  passed  the  straps  over  your 
shoulder  than  the  lees  of  sleep  are  cleared 
from  you,  you  pull  yourself  together  with  a 
shake,  and  fall  at  once  into  your  stride.  And 
surely,  of  all  possible  moods,  this,  in  which 
a  man  takes  the  road,  is  the  best.  Of  course, 
if  he  will  keep  thinking  of  his  anxieties,  if 
he  will  open  the  merchant  Abudah's  chest 
and  walk  arm-in-arm  with  the  hag — why, 
wherever  he  is,  and  whether  he  walk  fast  or 
slow,  the  chances  are  that  he  will  not  be 
happy.  And  so  much  the  more  shame  to  him- 
self! There  are  perhaps  thirty  men  setting 
forth  at  that  same  hour,  and  I  would  lay  a 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

large  wager  there  is  not  another  dull  face 
among  the  thirty.  It  would  be  a  fine  thing 
to  follow,  in  a  coat  of  darkness,  one  after 
another  of  these  wayfarers,  some  summer 
morning,  for  the  first  few  miles  upon  the 
road.  This  one,  who  walks  fast,  with  a  keen 
look  in  his  eyes,  is  all  concentrated  in  his 
own  mind;  he  is  up  at  his  loom,  weaving 
and  weaving,  to  set  the  landscape  to  words. 
This  one  peers  about,  as  he  goes,  among 
the  grasses ;  he  waits  by  the  canal  to  watch 
the  dragon-flies;  he  leans  on  the  gate  of  the 
pasture,  and  cannot  look  enough  upon  the 
complacent  kine.  And  here  comes  another, 
talking,  laughing,  and  gesticulating  to  him- 
self. His  face  changes  from  time  to  time,  as 
indignation  flashes  from  his  eyes  or  anger 
clouds  his  forehead.  He  is  composing  articles, 
delivering  orations,  and  conducting  the  most 
impassioned  interviews,  by  the  way.  A  little 
farther  on,  and  it  is  as  like  as  not  he  will  be- 
gin to  sing.  And  well  for  him,  supposing  him 
to  be  no  great  master  in  that  art,  if  he  stum- 
ble across  no  stolid  peasant  at  a  corner;  for 
on  such  an  occasion,  I  scarcely  know  which 

[4*] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

is  the  more  troubled,  or  whether  it  is  worse 
to  suffer  the  confusion  of  your  troubadour  or 
the  unfeigned  alarm  of  your  clown.  A  seden- 
tary population,  accustomed,  besides,  to  the 
strange  mechanical  bearing  of  the  common 
tramp,  can  in  no  wise  explain  to  itself  the 
gaiety  of  these  passers-by.  I  knew  one  man 
who  was  arrested  as  a  runaway  lunatic,  be- 
cause, although  a  full-grown  person  with  a 
red  beard,  he  skipped  as  he  went  like  a  child. 
And  you  would  be  astonished  if  I  were  to 
tell  you  all  the  grave  and  learned  heads  who 
have  confessed  to  me  that,  when  on  walk- 
ing tours,  they  sang — and  sang  very  ill  — 
and  had  a  pair  of  red  ears  when,  as  described 
above, the  inauspicious  peasant  plumped  into 
their  arms  from  round  a  corner.  And  here, 
lest  you  should  think  I  am  exaggerating,  is 
Hazlitt's  own  confession,  from  his  essay 
"On  Going  a  Journey,"  which  is  so  good  that 
there  should  be  a  tax  levied  on  all  who  have 
not  read  it:  — 

"Give  me  the  clear  blue  sky  over  my 
head,"  says  he,  "  and  the  green  turf  beneath 
my  feet,  a  winding  road  before  me,  and  a 

[43] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

three  hours'  march  to  dinner — and  then  to 
thinking!  It  is  hard  if  I  cannot  start  some 
game  on  these  lone  heaths.  I  laugh,  I  run, 
I  leap,  I  sing  for  joy." 

Bravo !  After  that  adventure  of  my  friend 
with  the  policeman,  you  would  not  have 
cared,  would  you,  to  publish  that  in  the  first 
person  ?  But  we  have  no  bravery  nowadays, 
and,  even  in  books,  must  all  pretend  to  be 
as  dull  and  foolish  as  our  neighbours.  It  was 
not  so  with  Hazlitt.  And  notice  how  learned 
he  is  (as,  indeed,  throughout  the  essay)  in 
the  theory  of  walking  tours.  He  is  none  of 
your  athletic  men  in  purple  stockings,  who 
walk  their  fifty  miles  a  day:  three  hours' 
march  is  his  ideal.  And  then  he  must  have 
a  winding  road,  the  epicure! 

Yet  there  is  one  thing  I  object  to  in  these 
words  of  his,  one  thing  in  the  great  master's 
practice  that  seems  to  me  not  wholly  wise. 
I  do  not  approve  of  that  leaping  and  run- 
ning. Both  of  these  hurry  the  respiration; 
they  both  shake  up  the  brain  out  of  its  glori- 
ous open-air  confusion ;  and  they  both  break 
the  pace.  Uneven  walking  is  not  so  agree- 

[44] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

able  to  the  body,  and  it  distracts  and  irri- 
tates the  mind.  Whereas,  when  once  you 
have  fallen  into  an  equable  stride,  it  requires 
no  conscious  thought  from  you  to  keep  it 
up,  and  yet  it  prevents  you  from  thinking 
earnestly  of  anything  else.  Like  knitting,  like 
the  work  of  a  copying  clerk,  it  gradually 
neutralises  and  sets  to  sleep  the  serious  ac- 
tivity of  the  mind.  We  can  think  of  this  or 
that,lightly  and  laughingly,  as  a  child  thinks, 
or  as  we  think  in  a  morning  doze;  we  can 
make  puns  or  puzzle  out  acrostics,  and  trifle 
in  a  thousand  ways  with  words  and  rhymes; 
but  when  it  comes  to  honest  work,  when 
we  come  to  gather  ourselves  together  for  an 
effort,  we  may  sound  the  trumpet  as  loud 
and  long  as  we  please ;  the  great  barons  of 
the  mind  will  not  rally  to  the  standard,  but 
sit,  each  one,  at  home,  warming  his  hands 
over  his  own  fire,  and  brooding  on  his  own 
private  thought! 

In  the  course  of  a  day's  walk,  you  see, 
there  is  much  variance  in  the  mood.  From 
the  exhilaration  of  the  start,  to  the  happy 
phlegm  of  the  arrival,  the  change  is  certainly 

[45] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

great.  As  the  day  goes  on, the  traveller  moves 
from  the  one  extreme  end  towards  the  other. 
He  becomes  more  and  more  incorporated 
with  the  material  landscape,  and  the  open- 
air  drunkenness  grows  upon  him  with  great 
strides,  until  he  posts  along  the  road,  and 
sees  everything  about  him,  as  in  a  cheerful 
dream.  The  first  is  certainly  brighter,  but 
the  second  stage  is  the  more  peaceful.  A 
man  does  not  make  so  many  articles  towards 
the  end,  nor  does  he  laugh  aloud ;  but  the 
purely  animal  pleasures,  the  sense  of  physi- 
cal well-being,  the  delight  of  every  inhala- 
tion, of  every  time  the  muscles  tighten  down 
the  thigh,  console  him  for  the  absence  of 
the  others,  and  bring  him  to  his  destination 
still  content. 

Nor  must  I  forget  to  say  a  word  on  biv- 
ouacs. You  come  to  a  milestone  on  a  hill, 
or  some  place  where  deep  ways  meet  under 
trees;  and  off  goes  the  knapsack,  and  down 
you  sit  to  smoke  a  pipe  in  the  shade.  You 
sink  into  yourself,  and  the  birds  come  round 
and  look  at  you ;  and  your  smoke  dissipates 
upon  the  afternoon  under  the  blue  dome  of 

[46] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

heaven ;  and  the  sun  lies  warm  upon  your 
feet,  and  the  cool  air  visits  your  neck  and 
turns  aside  your  open  shirt.  If  you  are  not 
happy,  you  must  have  an  evil  conscience. 
You  may  dally  as  long  as  you  like  by  the 
roadside.  It  is  almost  as  if  the  millennium 
were  arrived,  when  we  shall  throw  our  clocks 
and  watches  over  the  house-top,  and  remem- 
ber time  and  seasons  no  more.  Not  to  keep 
hours  for  a  lifetime  is,  I  was  going  to  say, 
to  live  for  ever.  You  have  no  idea,  unless 
you  have  tried  it,  how  endlessly  long  is  a 
summer's  day  that  you  measure  out  only 
by  hunger,  and  bring  to  an  end  only  when 
you  are  drowsy.  I  know  a  village  where 
there  are  hardly  any  clocks,  where  no  one 
knows  more  of  the  days  of  the  week  than 
by  a  sort  of  instinct  for  the/2/*  on  Sundays, 
and  where  only  one  person  can  tell  you 
the  day  of  the  month,  and  she  is  generally 
wrong ;  and  if  people  were  aware  how  slow 
Time  journeyed  in  that  village,  and  what 
armfuls  of  spare  hours  he  gives,  over  and 
above  the  bargain,*  to  its  wise  inhabitants, 
I  believe  there  would  be  a  stampede  out  of 

[47] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

London,  Liverpool,  Paris,  and  a  variety  of 
large  towns,  where  the  clocks  lose  their 
heads,  and  shake  the  hours  out  each  one 
faster  than  the  other,  as  though  they  were 
all  in  a  wager.  And  all  these  foolish  pilgrims 
would  each  bring  his  own  misery  along  with 
him,  in  a  watch-pocket !  It  is  to  be  noticed 
there  were  no  clocks  and  watches  in  the 
much-vaunted  days  before  the  flood.  It  fol- 
lows, of  course,  there  were  no  appointments, 
and  punctuality  was  not  yet  thought  upon.) 
"Though  ye  take  from  a  covetous  man  all 
his  treasure,"  says  Milton,  u  he  has  yet  one 
jewel  left ;  ye  cannot  deprive  him  of  his  cov- 
etousness."  And  so  I  would  say  of  a  modern 
man  of  business,  you  may  do  what  you  will 
for  him,  put  him  in  Eden,  give  him  the  elixir 
of  life — he  has  still  a  flaw  at  heart,  he  still 
has  his  business  habits.  Now,  there  is  no 
time  when  business  habits  are  more  miti- 
gated than  on  a  walking  tour.  And  so  dur- 
ing these  halts,  as  I  say,  you  will  feel  almost 
free. 

But  it  is  at  night, and  after  dinner, that  the 
best  hour  comes.  There  are  no  such  pipes 

[48] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

to  be  smoked  as  those  that  follow  a  good 
day's  march ;  the  flavour  of  the  tobacco  is 
a  thing  to  be  remembered,  it  is  so  dry  and 
aromatic,  so  full  and  so  fine.  If  you  wind  up 
the  evening  with  grog,  you  will  own  there 
was  never  such  grog ;  at  every  sip  a  jocund 
tranquillity  spreads  about  your  limbs,  and 
sits  easily  in  your  heart.  If  you  read  a  book 
—  and  you  will  never  do  so  save  by  fits  and 
starts- — you  find  the  language  strangely  racy 
and  harmonious;  words  take  a  new  meaning; 
single  sentences  possess  the  ear  for  half  an 
hour  together;  and  the  writer  endears  himself 
to  you,  at  every  page,  by  the  nicest  coinci- 
dence of  sentiment.  It  seems  as  if  it  were  a 
book  you  had  written  yourself  in  a  dream.  To 
all  we  have  read  on  such  occasions  we  look 
back  with  special  favour.  "It  was  on  the 
loth  of  April,  1798,"  says  Hazlitt,  with 
amorous  precision,  "that  I  sat  down  to  a 
volume  of  the  new  cHeloise,'  at  the  Inn 
at  Llangollen,  over  a  bottle  of  sherry  and  a 
cold  chicken."  I  should  wish  to  quote  more, 
for  though  we  are  mighty  fine  fellows  nowa- 
days, we  cannot  write  like  Hazlitt.  And, 

[49] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

talking  of  that,  a  volume  of  Hazlitt's  essays 
would  be  a  capital  pocket-book  on  such 
a  journey;  so  would  a  volume  of  Heine's 
songs;  and  for  "Tristram  Shandy"  I  can 
pledge  a  fair  experience. 

If  the  evening  be  fine  and  warm,  there  is 
nothing  better  in  life  than  to  lounge  before 
the  inn  door  in  the  sunset,  or  lean  over  the 
parapet  of  the  bridge,  to  watch  the  weeds 
and  the  quick  fishes.  It  is  then,  if  ever,  that 
you  taste  Joviality  to  the  full  significance 
of  that  audacious  word.  Your  muscles  are 
so  agreeably  slack,  you  feel  so  clean  and  so 
strong  and  so  idle,  that  whether  you  move 
or  sit  still,  whatever  you  do  is  done  with 
pride  and  a  kingly  sort  of  pleasure.  You  fall 
in  talk  with  any  one,  wise  or  foolish,  drunk 
or  sober.  And  it  seems  as  if  a  hot  walk 
purged  you,  more  than  of  anything  else,  of 
all  narrowness  and  pride,  and  left  curiosity  to 
play  its  part  freely,  as  in  a  child  or  a  man  of 
science.  You  lay  aside  all  your  own  hobbies, 
to  watch  provincial  humours  develop  them- 
selves before  you,  now  as  a  laughable  farce, 
and  now  grave  and  beautiful  like  an  old  tale. 

[50] 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Or  perhaps  you  are  left  to  your  own  com- 
pany for  the  night,  and  surly  weather  im- 
prisons you  by  the  fire.  You  may  remember 
how  Burns,  numbering  past  pleasures,  dwells 
upon  the  hours  when  he  has  been  "happy 
thinking."  It  is  a  phrase  that  may  well  per- 
plex a  poor  modern,  girt  about  on  every  side 
by  clocks  and  chimes,  and  haunted,  even  at 
night,  by  flaming  dial-plates.  For  we  are  all 
so  busy,  and  have  so  many  far-off  projects 
to  realise,  and  castles  in  the  fire  to  turn  into 
solid  habitable  mansions  on  a  gravel  soil, 
that  we  can  find  no  time  for  pleasure  trips 
into  the  Land  of  Thought  and  among  the 
Hills  of  Vanity.  Changed  times,  indeed, 
when  we  must  sit  all  night,  beside  the  fire, 
with  folded  hands;  and  a  changed  world 
for  most  of  us,  when  we  find  we  can  pass 
the  hours  without  discontent,  and  be  happy 
thinking.  We  are  in  such  haste  to  be  doing, 
to  be  writing,  to  be  gathering  gear,  to  make 
our  voice  audible  a  moment  in  the  derisive 
silence  of  eternity,  that  we  forget  that  one 
thing,  of  which  these  are  but  the  parts  — 
namely,  to  live.  We  fall  in  love,  we  drink 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

hard,  we  run  to  and  fro  upon  the  earth  like 
frightened  sheep.  And  now  you  are  to  ask 
yourself  if,  when  all  is  done,  you  would 
not  have  been  better  to  sit  by  the  fire  at 
home,  and  be  happy  thinking.  To  sit  still 
and  contemplate, — to  remember  the  faces 
of  women  without  desire,  to  be  pleased  by 
the  great  deeds  of  men  without  envy,  to  be 
every  thing  and  everywhere  in  sympathy,  and 
yet  content  to  remain  where  and  what  you 
are  —  is  not  this  to  know  both  wisdom  and 
virtue,  and  to  dwell  with  happiness  ?  After 
all,  it  is  not  they  who  carry  flags,  but  they 
who  look  upon  it  from  a  private  chamber, 
who  have  the  fun  of  the  procession.  And 
once  you  are  at  that,  you  are  in  the  very 
humour  of  all  social  heresy.  It  is  no  time  for 
shuffling,  or  for  big  empty  words.  If  you 
ask  yourself  what  you  mean  by  fame,  riches, 
or  learning,  the  answer  is  far  to  seek ;  and 
you  go  back  into  that  kingdom  of  light  ima- 
ginations, which  seem  so  vain  in  the  eyes 
of  Philistines  perspiring  after  wealth,  and 
so  momentous  to  those  who  are  stricken 
with  the  disproportions  of  the  world,  and,  in 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

the  face  of  the  gigantic  stars,  cannot  stop  to 
split  differences  between  two  degrees  of  the 
infinitesimally  small,  such  as  a  tobacco  pipe 
or  the  Roman  Empire,  a  million  of  money 
or  a  fiddlestick's  end. 

You  lean  from  the  window,  your  last  pipe 
reeking  whitely  into  the  darkness,  your  body 
full  of  delicious  pains,  your  mind  enthroned 
in  the  seventh  circle  of  content ;  when  sud- 
denly the  mood  changes,  the  weather-cock 
goes  about,  and  you  ask  yourself  one  ques- 
tion more:  whether,  for  the  interval,  you 
have  been  the  wisest  philosopher  or  the  most 
egregious  of  donkeys?  Human  experience 
is  not  yet  able  to  reply ;  but  at  least  you 
have  had  a  fine  moment,  and  looked  down 
upon  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth.  And 
whether  it  was  wise  or  foolish,  to-morrow's 
travel  will  carry  you,  body  and  mind,  into 
some  different  parish  of  the  infinite. 


[53] 


AFOOT 

C.  FOX  SMITH 


is  the  road  ^twixt  town  and  town 
that  runs, 

Travelled  by  many  a  lordly  cavalcade -, 

With  trappings  gay ,  and  rich  caparisons, 

Jester  and  squire,  and  laughing  knight 

and  maid: 
With  gallant  clash  and  stir  they  go  their 

way: 
I  trudge  afoot  thro*  all  the  drouth  of  day. 

For  me,  the  misty  meadows  fresh  with 

mom, 

The  tramp  thro'*  noontide  heat  to  even- 
ing gray, 

The  far- seen  smoke  from  the  day^s  goal 

upborne, 

The  halt,  the  friendly  greeting  by  the 
way, 

The  distant  hill  behind  Jar  hill  descried, 

The  road  by  day,  the  rest  at  eventide. 

[54] 


C.   FOX  SMITH 


/  know  each  wayside  wood,  each  moor- 
land brown, 

Each  hidden    byway  and  reposeful 
nook, 

Where  I  may  linger  when  the  sun  goes 

down, 

Dipping  tired  feet  in  some  cool  flow- 
ing brook; 

I  know  the  free  hill  and  the  glooming 
glen, 

And  kindly  flres,   and  humble  homes 
of  men. 


[55] 


WALKING 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 


I  HAVE  met  with  but  one  or  two  per- 
sons in  the  course  of  my  life  who  un- 
derstood the  art  of  Walking,  that  is,  of  tak- 
ing walks, — who  had  a  genius,  so  to  speak, 
for  sauntering:  which  word  is  beautifully 
derived  "  from  idle  people  who  roved  about 
the  country,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  asked 
charity,  under  pretence  of  going  a  la  Sainte 
Terre"  to  the  Holy  Land,  till  the  children 
exclaimed,  "There  goes  a  Saint e-Terrer"  a 
Saunterer,  a  Holy-Lander.  They  who  never 
go  to  the  Holy  Land  in  their  walks,  as  they 
pretend,  are  indeed  mere  idlers  and  vaga- 
bonds ;  but  they  who  do  go  there  are  saun- 
terers  in  the  good  sense,  such  as  I  mean. 
Some,  however,  would  derive  the  word  from 
sans  terre,  without  land  or  a  home,  which, 
therefore,  in  the  good  sense,  will  mean,  hav- 
ing no  particular  home,  but  equally  at  home 
everywhere.  For  this  is  the  secret  of  suc- 
cessful sauntering.  He  who  sits  still  in  a 
house  all  the  time  may  be  the  greatest  va- 

[56] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

grant  of  all;  but  the  saunterer,  in  the  good 
sense,  is  no  more  vagrant  than  the  mean- 
dering river,  which  is  all  the  while  sedu- 
lously seeking  the  shortest  course  to  the  sea. 
But  I  prefer  the  first,  which,  indeed,  is  the 
most  probable  derivation.  For  every  walk  is 
a  sort  of  crusade,  preached  by  some  Peter 
the  Hermit  in  us,  to  go  forth  and  reconquer 
this  Holy  Land  from  the  hands  of  the  In- 
fidels. 

It  is  true,  we  are  but  faint-hearted  cru- 
saders, even  the  walkers,  nowadays,  who 
undertake  no  persevering,  never-ending  en- 
terprises. Our  expeditions  are  but  tours,  and 
come  round  again  at  evening  to  the  old 
hearth-side  from  which  we  set  out.  Half  the 
walk  is  but  retracing  our  steps.  We  should 
go  forth  on  the  shortest  walk,  perchance, 
in  the  spirit  of  undying  adventure,  never 
to  return,  —  prepared  to  send  back  our  em- 
balmed hearts  only  as  relics  to  our  desolate 
kingdoms.  If  you  are  ready  to  leave  father 
and  mother,  and  brother  and  sister,  and  wife 
and  child  and  friends,  and  never  see  them 
again, — if  you  have  paid  your  debts,  and 

[57] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

made  your  will,  and  settled  all  your  affairs, 
and  are  a  free  man,  then  you  are  ready  for 
a  walk. 

To  come  down  to  my  own  experience, 
my  companion  and  I,  for  I  sometimes  have 
a  companion,  take  pleasure  in  fancying  our- 
selves knights  of  a  new,  or  rather  an  old, 
order, — not  Equestrians  or  Chevaliers,  not 
Ritters  or  Riders,  but  Walkers,  a  still  more 
ancient  and  honourable  class,  I  trust.  The 
chivalric  and  heroic  spirit  which  once  be- 
longed to  the  Rider  seems  now  to  reside 
in,  or  perchance  to  have  subsided  into,  the 
Walker,  —  not  the  Knight,  but  Walker, 
Errant.  He  is  a  sort  of  fourth  estate,  out- 
side of  Church  and  State  and  People. 

We  have  felt  that  we  almost  alone  here- 
abouts practised  this  noble  art;  though,  to 
tell  the  truth,  at  least,  if  their  own  asser- 
tions are  to  be  received,  most  of  my  towns- 
men would  fain  walk  sometimes,  as  I  do, 
but  they  cannot.  No  wealth  can  buy  the 
requisite  leisure,  freedom,  and  independence 
which  are  the  capital  in  this  profession.  It 
comes  only  by  the  grace  of  God.  It  requires 

[58] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

a  direct  dispensation  from  Heaven  to  be- 
come a  walker.  You  must  be  born  into  the 
family  of  the  Walkers.  Ambulator  nascitur, 
non  fit.  Some  of  my  townsmen,  it  is  true, 
can  remember  and  have  described  to  me 
some  walks  which  they  took  ten  years  ago, 
in  which  they  were  so  blessed  as  to  lose 
themselves  for  half  an  hour  in  the  woods ; 
but  I  know  very  well  that  they  have  con- 
fined themselves  to  the  highway  ever  since, 
whatever  pretensions  they  may  make  to  be- 
long to  this  select  class.  No  doubt  they  were 
elevated  for  a  moment  as  by  the  reminis- 
cence of  a  previous  state  of  existence,  when 
even  they  were  foresters  and  outlaws. 

When  he  came  to  grene  wade, 

In  a  mery  mornynge, 
There  he  herde  the  notes  small 

Ofbyrdes  mery  syngynge. 

It  isferre  gone^  sayd  Robyn, 

That  I  ^was  last  here; 
Me  lyste  a  ly  tell  for  to  shote 

At  the  donne  dere. 

I  think  that  I  cannot  preserve  my  health 
and  spirits,  unless  I  spend  four  hours  a  day 

[  59] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

at  least,  —  and  it  is  commonly  more  than 
that,  —  sauntering  through  the  woods  and 
over  the  hills  and  fields,  absolutely  free  from 
all  worldly  engagements.  You  may  safely 
say,  A  penny  for  your  thoughts,  or  a  thou- 
sand pounds.  When  sometimes  I  am  re- 
minded that  the  mechanics  and  shopkeepers 
stay  in  their  shops  not  only  all  the  fore- 
noon, but  all  the  afternoon  too,  sitting  with 
crossed  legs,  so  many  of  them,  —  as  if  the 
legs  were  made  to  sit  upon,  and  not  to  stand 
or  walk  upon,  —  I  think  that  they  deserve 
some  credit  for  not  having  all  committed 
suicide  long  ago. 

I,  who  cannot  stay  in  my  chamber  for  a 
single  day  without  acquiring  some  rust,  and 
when  sometimes  I  have  stolen  forth  for  a 
walk  at  the  eleventh  hour  or  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  too  late  to  redeem  the  day, 
when  the  shades  of  night  were  already  be- 
ginning to  be  mingled  with  the  daylight, 
have  felt  as  if  I  had  committed  some  sin 
to  be  atoned  for, — I  confess  that  I  am  as- 
tonished at  the  power  of  endurance,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  moral  insensibility,  of  my 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

neighbours  who  confine  themselves  to  shops 
and  offices  the  whole  day  for  weeks  and 
months,  aye,  and  years  almost  together.  I 
know  not  what  manner  of  stuff  they  are  of, 
— sitting  there  now  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  as  if  it  were  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Bonaparte  may  talk  of  the  three- 
o'clock-in-the-morning  courage,  but  it  is 
nothing  to  the  courage  which  can  sit  down 
cheerfully  at  this  hour  in  the  afternoon  over 
against  one's  self  whom  you  have  known 
all  the  morning,  to  starve  out  a  garrison  to 
whom  you  are  bound  by  such  strong  ties 
of  sympathy.  I  wonder  that  about  this  time, 
or  say  between  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  too  late  for  the  morning  papers 
and  too  early  for  the  evening  ones,  there  is 
not  a  general  explosion  heard  up  and  down 
the  street,  scattering  a  legion  of  antiquated 
and  house-bred  notions  and  whims  to  the 
four  winds  for  an  airing,  —  and  so  the  evil 
cure  itself. 

How  womankind,  who  are  confined  to 
the  house  still  more  than  men,  stand  it  I 
do  not  know;  but  I  have  ground  to  suspect 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

that  most  of  them  do  not  stand  it  at  all. 
When,  early  in  a  summer  afternoon,  we 
have  been  shaking  the  dust  of  the  village 
from  the  skirts  of  our  garments,  making 
haste  past  those  houses  with  purely  Doric 
or  Gothic  fronts,  which  have  such  an  air 
of  repose  about  them,  my  companion  whis- 
pers that  probably  about  these  times  their 
occupants  are  all  gone  to  bed.  Then  it  is 
that  I  appreciate  the  beauty  and  the  glory  of 
architecture,  which  itself  never  turns  in,  but 
forever  stands  out  and  erect,  keeping  watch 
over  the  slumberers. 

No  doubt  temperament,  and,  above  all, 
age,  have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  As  a  man 
grows  older,  his  ability  to  sit  still  and  follow 
indoor  occupations  increases.  He  grows  ves- 
pertinal  in  his  habits  as  the  evening  of  life 
approaches,  till  at  last  he  comes  forth  only 
just  before  sundown,  and  gets  all  the  walk 
that  he  requires  in  half  an  hour. 

But  the  walking  of  which  I  speak  has 
nothing  in  it  akin  to  taking  exercise,  as  it 
is  called,  as  the  sick  take  medicine  at  stated 
hours, —  as  the  swinging  of  dumb-bells  or 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

chairs;  but  is  itself  the  enterprise  and  adven- 
ture of  the  day.  If  you  would  get  exercise, 
go  in  search  of  the  springs  of  life.  Think  of 
a  man's  swinging  dumb-bells  for  his  health, 
when  those  springs  are  bubbling  up  in  far- 
off  pastures  unsought  by  him! 

Moreover,  you  must  walk  like  a  camel, 
which  is  said  to  be  the  only  beast  which  rumi- 
nates when  walking.  When  a  traveller  asked 
Wordsworth's  servant  to  show  him  her  mas- 
ter's study,  she  answered,  uHere  is  his  li- 
brary, but  his  study  is  out  of  doors." 

Living  much  out  of  doors,  in  the  sun  and 
wind,  will  no  doubt  produce  a  certain  rough- 
ness of  character — will  cause  a  thicker  cu- 
ticle to  grow  over  some  of  the  finer  qualities 
of  our  nature,  as  on  the  face  and  hands,  or 
as  severe  manual  labor  robs  the  hands  of  some 
of  their  delicacy  of  touch.  So  staying  in  the 
house,  on  the  other  hand,  may  produce  a 
softness  and  smoothness,  not  to  say  thinness 
of  skin,  accompanied  by  an  increased  sen- 
sibility to  certain  impressions.  Perhaps  we 
should  be  more  susceptible  to  some  influ- 
ences important  to  our  intellectual  and  moral 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

growth,  if  the  sun  had  shone  and  the  wind 
blown  on  us  a  little  less;  and  no  doubt  it  is 
a  nice  matter  to  proportion  rightly  the  thick 
and  thin  skin.  But  methinks  that  is  a  scurf 
that  will  fall  off  fast  enough,  —  that  the  nat- 
ural remedy  is  to  be  found  in  the  propor- 
tion which  the  night  bears  to  the  day,  the 
winter  to  the  summer,  thought  to  experience. 
There  will  be  so  much  the  more  air  and  sun- 
shine in  our  thoughts.  The  callous  palms  of 
the  labourer  are  conversant  with  finer  tissues 
of  self-respect  and  heroism,  whose  touch 
thrills  the  heart,  than  the  languid  fingers  of 
idleness.  That  is  mere  sentimentality  that 
lies  a-bed  by  day  and  thinks  itself  white,  far 
from  the  tan  and  callus  of  experience. 

When  we  walk,  we  naturally  go  to  the 
fields  and  woods :  what  would  become  of  us, 
if  we  walked  only  in  a  garden  or  a  mall? 
Even  some  sects  of  philosophers  have  felt  the 
necessity  of  importing  the  woods  to  them- 
selves, since  they  did  not  go  to  the  woods. 
"They  planted  groves  and  walks  of  Pla- 
tanes,"  where  they  took  subdiales  ambula- 
tiones  in  porticos  open  to  the  air.  Of  course 

[64] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

it  is  of  no  use  to  direct  our  steps  to  the  woods, 
if  they  do  not  carry  us  thither.  I  am  alarmed 
when  it  happens  that  I  have  walked  a  mile 
into  the  woods  bodily,  without  getting  there 
in  spirit.  In  my  afternoon  walk  I  would  fain 
forget  all  my  morning  occupations  and  my 
obligations  to  society.  But  it  sometimes  hap- 
pens that  I  cannot  easily  shake  off  the  vil- 
lage. The  thought  of  some  work  will  run  in 
my  head  and  I  am  not  where  my  body  is, — 
I  am  out  of  my  senses.  In  my  walks  I  would 
fain  return  to  my  senses.  What  business  have 
I  in  the  woods,  if  I  am  thinking  of  some- 
thing out  of  the  woods?  I  suspect  my  self,  and 
cannot  help  a  shudder,  when  I  find  myself 
so  implicated  even  in  what  are  called  good 
works,  —  for  this  may  sometimes  happen. 
My  vicinity  affords  many  good  walks;  and 
though  for  so  many  years  I  have  walked 
almost  every  day,  and  sometimes  for  sev- 
eral days  together,  I  have  not  yet  exhausted 
them.  An  absolutely  new  prospect  is  a  great 
happiness,  and  I  can  still  get  this  any  after- 
noon. Two  or  three  hours'  walking  will 
carry  me  to  as  strange  a  country  as  I  expect 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

ever  to  see.  A  single  farm-house  which  I  had 
not  seen  before  is  sometimes  as  good  as  the 
dominions  of  the  King  of  Dahomey.  There 
is  in  fact  a  sort  of  harmony  discoverable  be- 
tween the  capabilities  of  the  landscape  within 
a  circle  of  ten  miles'  radius,  or  the  limits  of 
an  afternoon  walk,  and  the  threescore  years 
and  ten  of  human  life.  It  will  never  become 
quite  familiar  to  you. 

Nowadays  almost  all  man's  improve- 
ments, so  called,  as  the  building  of  houses, 
and  the  cutting  down  of  the  forest  and  of 
all  large  trees,  simply  deform  the  landscape, 
and  make  it  more  and  more  tame  and  cheap. 
A  people  who  would  begin  by  burning  the 
fences  and  let  the  forest  stand!  I  saw  the 
fences  half  consumed,  their  ends  lost  in  the 
middle  of  the  prairie,  and  some  worldly  mi- 
ser with  a  surveyor  looking  after  his  bounds, 
while  heaven  had  taken  place  around  him, 
and  he  did  not  see  the  angels  going  to  and 
fro,  but  was  looking  for  an  old  post-hole  in 
the  midst  of  paradise.  I  looked  again,  and 
saw  him  standing  in  the  middle  of  a  boggy 
Stygian  fen,  surrounded  by  devils,  and  he 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

had  found  his  bounds  without  a  doubt,  three 
little  stones,  where  a  stake  had  been  driven, 
and  looking  nearer,  I  saw  that  the  Prince  of 
Darkness  was  his  surveyor. 

I  can  easily  walk  ten,  fifteen,  twenty,  any 
number  of  miles,  commencing  at  my  own 
door,  without  going  by  any  house,  without 
crossing  a  road  except  where  the  fox  and 
the  mink  do;  first  along  by  the  river,  and 
then  the  brook,  and  then  the  meadow  and 
the  woodside.  There  are  square  miles  in 
my  vicinity  which  have  no  inhabitant.  From 
many  a  hill  I  can  see  civilization  and  the 
abodes  of  man  afar.  The  farmers  and  their 
works  are  scarcely  more  obvious  than  wood- 
chucks  and  their  burrows.  Man  and  his  af- 
fairs, church  and  state  and  school,  trade  and 
commerce,  and  manufactures  and  agricul- 
ture, even  politics,  the  most  alarming  of 
them  all, — I  am  pleased  to  see  how  little 
space  they  occupy  in  the  landscape.  Politics 
is  but  a  narrow  field,  and  that  still  narrower 
highway  yonder  leads  to  it.  I  sometimes 
direct  the  traveller  thither.  If  you  would  go 
to  the  political  world,  follow  the  great  road, 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

—  follow  that  market-man,  keep  his  dust  in 
your  eyes,  and  it  will  lead  you  straight  to 
it;  for  it,  too,  has  its  place  merely,  and  does 
not  occupy  all  space.  I  pass  from  it  as  from 
a  bean-field  into  the  forest,  and  it  is  for- 
gotten. In  one  half-hour  I  can  walk  off  to 
some  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  where 
a  man  does  not  stand  from  one  year's  end 
to  another,  and  there,  consequently,  politics 
are  not,  for  they  are  but  as  the  cigar-smoke 
of  a  man. 

The  village  is  the  place  to  which  the 
roads  tend,  a  sort  of  expansion  of  the  high- 
way, as  a  lake  of  a  river.  It  is  the  body  of 
which  roads  are  the  arms  and  legs, — a  triv- 
ial or  quadrivial  place,  the  thoroughfare  and 
ordinary  of  travellers.  The  word  is  from  the 
Latin  villa,  which  together  with  via,  a  way, 
or  more  anciently  ved  and  vella,  Varro  de- 
rives from  veho,  to  carry,  because  the  villa 
is  the  place  to  and  from  which  things  are 
carried.  They  who  got  their  living  by  team- 
ing were  said  vellaturam  facere.  Hence,  too, 
the  Latin  word  vilis  and  our  vile;  also  vil- 
lain. This  suggests  what  kind  of  degeneracy 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

villagers  are  liable  to.  They  are  wayworn  by 
the  travel  that  goes  by  and  over  them,  with- 
out travelling  themselves. 

Some  do  not  walk  at  all;  others  walk  in 
the  highways ;  a  few  walk  across  lots.  Roads 
are  made  for  horses  and  men  of  business.  I 
do  not  travel  in  them  much,  comparatively, 
because  I  am  not  in  a  hurry  to  get  to  any 
tavern  or  grocery  or  livery-stable  or  depot 
to  which  they  lead.  I  am  a  good  horse  to 
travel,  but  not  from  choice  a  roadster. 
The  landscape-painter  uses  the  figures  of 
men  to  mark  a  road.  He  would  not  make 
that  use  of  my  figure.  I  walk  out  into  a 
Nature  such  as  the  old  prophets  and  poets, 
Menu,  Moses,  Homer,  Chaucer,  walked  in. 
You  may  name  it  America,  but  it  is  not 
America;  neither  Americus  Vespucius,  nor 
Columbus,  nor  the  rest  were  the  discover- 
ers of  it.  There  is  a  truer  account  of  it  in 
mythology  than  in  any  history  of  America, 
so-called,  that  I  have  seen. 

What  is  it  that  makes  it  so  hard  some- 
times to  determine  whither  we  will  walk  ?  I 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

believe  that  there  is  a  subtle  magnetism,  in 
Nature,  which,  if  we  unconsciously  yield 
to  it,  will  direct  us  aright.  It  is  not  indiffer- 
ent to  us  which  way  we  walk.  There  is  a 
right  way ;  but  we  are  very  liable  from  heed- 
lessness  and  stupidity  to  take  the  wrong 
one.  We  would  fain  take  that  walk,  never 
yet  taken  by  us  through  this  actual  world, 
which  is  perfectly  symbolical  of  the  path 
which  we  love  to  travel  in  the  interior  and 
ideal  world;  and  sometimes,  no  doubt,  we 
find  it  difficult  to  choose  our  direction,  be- 
cause it  does  not  yet  exist  distinctly  in  our 
idea. 

When  I  go  out  of  the  house  for  a  walk, 
uncertain  as  yet  whither  I  will  bend  my 
steps,  and  submit  myself  to  my  instinct  to 
decide  for  me,  I  find,  strange  and  whimsical 
as  it  may  seem,  that  I  finally  and  inevita- 
bly settle  southwest,  toward  some  particular 
wood  or  meadow  or  deserted  pasture  or  hill 
in  that  direction.  My  needle  is  slow  to  set- 
tle,—  varies  a  few  degrees,  and  does  not 
always  point  due  southwest,  it  is  true,  and 
it  has  good  authority  for  this  variation,  but 

[70] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

it  always  settles  between  west  and  south- 
southwest.  The  future  lies  that  way  to  me, 
and  the  earth  seems  more  unexhausted  and 
richer  on  that  side.  The  outline  which  would 
bound  my  walks  would  be,  not  a  circle,  but 
a  parabola,  or  rather  like  one  of  those  com- 
etary  orbits  which  have  been  thought  to  be 
non-returning  curves,  in  this  case  opening 
westward,  in  which  my  house  occupies  the 
place  of  the  sun.  I  turn  round  and  round 
irresolute  sometimes  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  until  I  decide,  for  a  thousandth  time, 
that  I  will  walk  into  the  southwest  or  west. 
Eastward  I  go  only  by  force ;  but  westward 
I  go  free.  Thither  no  business  leads  me.  It 
is  hard  for  me  to  believe  that  I  shall  find 
fair  landscapes  or  sufficient  wildness  and 
freedom  behind  the  eastern  horizon.  I  am 
not  excited  by  the  prospect  of  a  walk  thither ; 
but  I  believe  that  the  forest  which  I  see 
in  the  western  horizon  stretches  uninter- 
ruptedly toward  the  setting  sun,  and  there 
are  no  towns  nor  cities  in  it  of  enough  con- 
sequence to  disturb  me.  Let  me  live  where 
I  will,  on  this  side  is  the  city,  on  that  the 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

wilderness,  and  ever  I  am  leaving  the  city 
more  and  more,  and  withdrawing  into  the 
wilderness.  .  .  . 

I  know  not  how  significant  it  is,  or  how 
far  it  is  an  evidence  of  singularity,  that  an 
individual  should  thus  consent  in  his  petti- 
est walk  with  the  general  movement  of  the 
race;  but  I  know  that  something  akin  to 
the  migratory  instinct  in  birds  and  quadru- 
peds,—  which,  in  some  instances,  is  known 
to  have  affected  the  squirrel  tribe,  impelling 
them  to  a  general  and  mysterious  move- 
ment, in  which  they  were  seen,  say  some, 
crossing  the  broadest  rivers,  each  on  its  par- 
ticular chip,  with  its  tail  raised  for  a  sail, 
and  bridging  narrower  streams  with  their 
dead, —  that  something  like  the  furor  which 
affects  the  domestic  cattle  in  the  spring,  and 
which  is  referred  to  a  worm  in  their  tails,  — 
affects  both  nations  and  individuals,  either 
perennially  or  from  time  to  time.  Not  a  flock 
of  wild  geese  cackles  over  our  town,  but  it 
to  some  extent  unsettles  the  value  of  real 
estate  here,  and,  if  I  were  a  broker,  I  should 
probably  take  that  disturbance  into  account. 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 


nan  longenfolk  to  gon  on  pilgrimages, 
And  -palmer  es  for  to  seken  strange  strondes. 

Every  sunset  which  I  witness  inspires  me 
with  the  desire  to  go  to  a  West  as  distant  and 
as  fair  as  that  into  which  the  sun  goes  down. 
He  appears  to  migrate  westward  daily,  and 
tempt  us  to  follow  him.  He  is  the  Great 
Western  Pioneer  whom  the  nations  follow. 
We  dream  all  night  of  those  mountain-ridges 
in  the  horizon,  though  they  maybe  of  vapour 
only,  which  were  last  gilded  by  his  rays. 
The  island  of  Atlantis,  and  the  islands  and 
gardens  of  the  Hesperides,  a  sort  of  terres- 
trial paradise,  appear  to  have  been  the  Great 
West  of  the  ancients,  enveloped  in  mystery 
and  poetry.  Who  has  not  seen  in  imagina- 
tion, when  looking  into  the  sunset  sky,  the 
gardens  of  the  Hesperides,  and  the  founda- 
tion of  all  those  fables  ? 

We  had  a  remarkable  sunset  one  day  last 
November.  I  was  walking  in  a  meadow, 
the  source  of  a  small  brook,  when  the  sun 
at  last,  just  before  setting,  after  a  cold  gray 

[73] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

day,  reached  a  clear  stratum  in  the  horizon, 
and  the  softest,  brightest  morning  sunlight 
fell  on  the  dry  grass  and  on  the  stems  of 
the  trees  in  the  opposite  horizon  and  on 
the  leaves  of  the  shrub-oaks  on  the  hillside, 
while  our  shadows  stretched  long  over  the 
meadow  eastward,  as  if  we  were  the  only 
motes  in  its  beams.  It  was  such  a  light  as 
we  could  not  have  imagined  a  moment  be- 
fore, and  the  air  also  was  so  warm  and  se- 
rene that  nothing  was  wanting  to  make  a 
paradise  of  that  meadow.  When  we  reflected 
that  this  was  not  a  solitary  phenomenon, 
never  to  happen  again,  but  that  it  would  hap- 
pen forever  and  ever  an  infinite  number  of 
evenings,  and  cheer  and  reassure  the  latest 
child  that  walked  there,  it  was  more  glorious 
still. 

The  sun  sets  on  some  retired  meadow, 
where  no  house  is  visible,  with  all  the  glory 
and  splendour  that  it  lavishes  on  cities,  and 
perchance  as  it  has  never  set  before, — where 
there  is  but  a  solitary  marsh-hawk  to  have 
his  wings  gilded  by  it,  or  only  a  musquash 
looks  out  from  his  cabin,  and  there  is  some 

[74] 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

little  black-veined  brook  in  the  midst  of  the 
marsh,  just  beginning  to  meander,  winding 
slowly  round  a  decaying  stump.  We  walked 
in  so  pure  and  bright  a  light,  gilding  the 
withered  grass  and  leaves,  so  softly  and  se- 
renely bright,  I  thought  I  had  never  bathed 
in  such  a  golden  flood,  without  a  ripple  or 
a  murmur  to  it.  The  west  side  of  every  wood 
and  rising  ground  gleamed  like  the  boundary 
of  Elysium,  and  the  sun  on  our  backs  seemed 
like  a  gentle  herdsman  driving  us  home  at 
evening. 

So  we  saunter  toward  the  Holy  Land,  till 
one  day  the  sun  shall  shine  more  brightly 
than  ever  he  has  done,  shall  perchance  shine 
into  our  minds  and  hearts,  and  light  up  our 
whole  lives  with  a  great  awakening  light,  as 
warm  and  serene  and  golden  as  on  a  bank- 
side  in  autumn. 


[75] 


ON  THE  ROADS 

ARTHUR  SYMONS 


1 HE  road  winds  onward  long  and  white, 
It  curves  in  mazy  coils,  and  crooks 
A  beckoning  finger  down  the  height; 
It  calls  me  with  the  voice  of  brooks 
To  thirsty  travellers  in  the  night. 

I  leave  the  lonely  city  street, 
The  awful  silence  of  the  crowd ; 
The  rhythm  of  the  roads  I  beat, 
My  blood  leaps  up,  I  shout  aloud, 
My  heart  keeps  measure  with  my  feet. 

A  bird  sings  something  in  my  ear, 
The  wind  sings  in  my  blood  a  song 
'  T  is  good  at  times  for  a  man  to  hear; 
The  road  winds  onward  white  and  long, 
And  the  best  of  Earth  is  here! 

[76] 


THE  EXHILARATIONS  OF 
THE  ROAD 

JOHN  BURROUGHS 

OCCASIONALLY  on  the  sidewalk, 
amid  the  dapper, swiftly-moving, high- 
heeled  boots  and  gaiters,  I  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  naked  human  foot.  Nimbly  it  scuffs 
along,  the  toes  spread,  the  sides  flatten,  the 
heel  protrudes;  it  grasps  the  curbing,  or 
bends  to  the  form  of  the  uneven  surfaces, — 
a  thing  sensuous  and  alive,  that  seems  to 
take  cognizance  of  whatever  it  touches  or 
passes.  How  primitive  and  uncivil  it  looks 
in  such  company, —  a  real  barbarian  in  the 
parlour!  We  are  so  unused  to  the  human 
anatomy,  to  simple,  unadorned  nature,  that 
it  looks  a  little  repulsive;  but  it  is  beautiful 
for  all  that.  Though  it  be  a  black  foot  and 
an  unwashed  foot,  it  shall  be  exalted.  It  is 
a  thing  of  life  amid  leather,  a  free  spirit  amid 
cramped,  a  wild  bird  amid  caged,  an  athlete 
amid  consumptives.  It  is  the  symbol  of  my 
order,  the  Order  of  Walkers.  That  unham- 
pered, vitally  playing  piece  of  anatomy  is  the 

[77] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


type  of  the  pedestrian,  man  returned  to  first 
principles,  in  direct  contact  and  intercourse 
with  the  earth  and  the  elements,  his  facul- 
ties unsheathed,  his  mind  plastic,  his  body 
toughened,  his  heart  light,  his  soul  dilated; 
while  those  cramped  and  distorted  members 
in  the  calf  and  kid  are  the  unfortunate 
wretches  doomed  to  carriages  and  cushions. 

I  am  not  going  to  advocate  the  disuse  of 
boots  and  shoes,  or  the  abandoning  of  the 
improved  modes  of  travel ;  but  I  am  going 
to  brag  as  lustily  as  I  can  on  behalf  of  the 
pedestrian,  and  show  how  all  the  shining 
angels  second  and  accompany  the  man  who 
goes  afoot,  while  all  the  dark  spirits  are  ever 
looking  out  for  a  chance  to  ride. 

When  I  see  the  discomforts  that  able-bod- 
ied American  men  will  put  up  with  rather  than 
go  a  mile  or  half  a  mile  on  foot,  the  abuses 
they  will  tolerate  and  encourage,  crowding 
the  street  car  on  a  little  fall  in  the  tempera- 
ture or  the  appearance  of  an  inch  or  two  of 
snow,  packing  up  to  overflowing,  dangling 
to  the  straps,  treading  on  each  other's  toes, 
breathing  each  other's  breaths,  crushing  the 

[78] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


women  and  children,  hanging  by  tooth  and 
nail  to  a  square  inch  of  the  platform,  im- 
perilling their  limbs  and  killing  the  horses,  — 
I  think  the  commonest  tramp  in  the  street 
has  good  reason  to  felicitate  himself  on  his 
rare  privilege  of  going  afoot.  Indeed,  a  race 
that  neglects  or  despises  this  primitive  gift, 
that  fears  the  touch  of  the  soil,  that  has 
no  footpaths,  no  community  of  ownership 
in  the  land  which  they  imply,  that  warns  off 
the  walker  as  a  trespasser,  that  knows  no 
way  but  the  highway,  the  carriage-way,  that 
forgets  the  stile,  the  foot-bridge,  that  even 
ignores  the  rights  of  the  pedestrian  in  the 
public  road,  providing  no  escape  for  him  but 
in  the  ditch  or  up  the  bank,  is  in  a  fair  way 
to  far  more  serious  degeneracy. 

Shakespeare  makes  the  chief  qualification 
of  the  walker  a  merry  heart:  — 


Jog  on,  jog  on,  the  footpath 
And  merrily  hent  the  stile-a  j 

A  merry  heart  goes  all  the  day, 
Tour  sad  tires  in  a  mile-a. 

The  human  body  is  a  steed  that  goes  freest 
and  longest  under  a  light  rider,  and  the  light- 

[79] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


est  of  all  riders  is  a  cheerful  heart.  Your  sad, 
or  morose,  or  embittered,  or  preoccupied 
heart  settles  heavily  into  the  saddle,  and  the 
poor  beast,  the  body,  breaks  down  the  first 
mile.  Indeed,  the  heaviest  thing  in  the  world 
is  a  heavy  heart.  Next  to  that,  the  most  bur- 
densome to  the  walker  is  a  heart  not  in  per- 
fect sympathy  and  accord  with  the  body,— 
a  reluctant  or  unwilling  heart.  The  horse  and 
rider  must  not  only  both  be  willing  to  go 
the  same  way,  but  the  rider  must  lead  the 
way  and  infuse  his  own  lightness  and  eager- 
ness into  the  steed.  Herein  is  no  doubt  our 
trouble,  and  one  reason  of  the  decay  of  the 
noble  art  in  this  country.  We  are  unwilling 
walkers.  We  are  not  innocent  and  simple- 
hearted  enough  to  enjoy  a  walk.  We  have 
fallen  from  that  state  of  grace  which  capa- 
city to  enjoy  a  walk  implies.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  as  a  people  we  are  so  positively  sad,  or 
morose, or  melancholic  as  that  we  are  vacant 
of  that  sportiveness  and  surplusage  of  animal 
spirits  that  characterised  our  ancestors,  and 
that  springs  from  full  and  harmonious  life, 
—  a  sound  heart  in  accord  with  a  sound  body. 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


A  man  must  invest  himself  near  at  hand  and 
in  common  things,  and  be  content  with  a 
steady  and  moderate  return,  if  he  would 
know  the  blessedness  of  a  cheerful  heart  and 
the  sweetness  of  a  walk  over  the  round  earth. 
This  is  a  lesson  the  American  has  yet  to 
learn, —  capability  of  amusement  on  a  low 
key.  He  expects  rapid  and  extraordinary 
returns.  He  would  make  the  very  elemental 
laws  pay  usury.  He  has  nothing  to  invest  in 
a  walk;  it  is  too  slow,  too  cheap.  We  crave 
the  astonishing,  the  exciting,  the  far  away, 
and  do  not  know  the  highways  of  the  gods 
when  we  see  them, —  always  a  sign  of  the 
decay  of  the  faith  and  simplicity  of  man. 

If  I  say  to  my  neighbour,  "Come  with  me, 
I  have  great  wonders  to  show  you,"  he  pricks 
up  his  ears  and  comes  forthwith;  but  when 
I  take  him  on  the  hills  under  the  full  blaze 
of  the  sun,  or  along  the  country  road,  our 
footsteps  lighted  by  the  moon  and  stars,  and 
say  to  him,  "  Behold,  these  are  the  wonders, 
these  are  the  circuits  of  the  gods,  this  we  now 
tread  is  a  morning  star,"  he  feels  defrauded, 
and  as  if  I  had  played  him  a  trick.  And  yet 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


nothing  less  than  dilatation  and  enthusiasm 
like  this  is  the  badge  of  the  master  walker. 

If  we  are  not  sad,  we  are  careworn,  hur- 
ried, discontented,  mortgaging  the  present 
for  the  promise  of  the  future.  If  we  take  a 
walk,  it  is  as  we  take  a  prescription,  with 
about  the  same  relish  and  with  about  the  same 
purpose;  and  the  more  the  fatigue  the  greater 
our  faith  in  the  virtue  of  the  medicine. 

Of  these  gleesome  saunters  over  the  hills 
in  spring,  or  those  sallies  of  the  body  in 
winter,  those  excursions  into  space  when 
the  foot  strikes  fire  at  every  step,  when  the 
air  tastes  like  a  new  and  finer  mixture,  when 
we  accumulate  force  and  gladness  as  we 
go  along,  when  the  sight  of  objects  by  the 
roadside  and  of  the  fields  and  woods  pleases 
more  than  pictures  or  than  all  the  art  in 
the  world, —  those  ten  or  twelve  mile  dashes 
that  are  but  the  wit  and  effluence  of  the 
corporeal  powers,  —  of  such  diversion  and 
open  road  entertainment,  I  say,  most  of  us 
know  very  little. 

I  notice  with  astonishment  that  at  our 
fashionable  watering-places  nobody  walks; 

[82] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


that,  of  all  those  vast  crowds  of  health- 
seekers  and  lovers  of  country  air,  you  can 
never  catch  one  in  the  fields  or  woods,  or 
guilty  of  trudging  along  the  country  road 
with  dust  on  his  shoes  and  sun-tan  on  his 
hands  and  face.  The  sole  amusement  seems 
to  be  to  eat  and  dress  and  sit  about  the  ho- 
tels and  glare  at  each  other.  The  men  look 
bored,  the  women  look  tired,  and  all  seem 
to  sigh,  UO  Lord!  what  shall  we  do  to  be 
happy  and  not  be  vulgar  ?"  Quite  different 
from  our  British  cousins  across  the  water, 
who  have  plenty  of  amusement  and  hilarity, 
spending  most  of  the  time  at  their  watering- 
places  in  the  open  air,  strolling,  picnicking, 
boating,  climbing,  briskly  walking,  appar- 
ently with  little  fear  of  sun-tan  or  of  com- 
promising their  "gentility." 

It  is  indeed  astonishing  with  what  ease 
and  hilarity  the  English  walk.  To  an  Ameri- 
can it  seems  a  kind  of  infatuation.  When 
Dickens  was  in  this  country,  I  imagine  the 
aspirants  to  the  honour  of  a  walk  with  him 
were  not  numerous.  In  a  pedestrian  tour 
of  England  by  an  American,  I  read  that, 

[83] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


"after  breakfast  with  the  Independent  min- 
ister, he  walked  with  us  for  six  miles  out  of 
town  upon  our  road.  Three  little  boys  and 
girls,  the  youngest  six  years  old,  also  accom- 
panied us.  They  were  romping  and  rambling 
about  all  the  while,  and  their  morning  walk 
must  have  been  as  much  as  fifteen  miles; 
but  they  thought  nothing  of  it,  and  when 
we  parted  were  apparently  as  fresh  as  when 
we  started,  and  very  loath  to  return." 

I  fear,  also,  the  American  is  becoming 
disqualified  for  the  manly  art  of  walking  by 
a  falling  off*  in  the  size  of  his  foot.  He  cher- 
ishes and  cultivates  this  part  of  his  anatomy, 
and  apparently  thinks  his  taste  and  good 
breeding  are  to  be  inferred  from  its  diminu- 
tive size.  A  small,  trim  foot,  well  booted 
or  gaitered,  is  the  national  vanity.  How  we 
stare  at  the  big  feet  of  foreigners,  and  won- 
der what  may  be  the  price  of  leather  in  those 
countries,  and  where  all  the  aristocratic  blood 
is,  that  these  plebeian  extremities  so  pre- 
dominate !  If  we  were  admitted  to  the  con- 
fidences of  the  shoemaker  to  Her  Majesty  or 
to  His  Royal  Highness,  no  doubt  we  should 

[84] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


modify  our  views  upon  this  latter  point,  for 
a  truly  large  and  royal  nature  is  never  stunted 
in  the  extremities ;  a  little  foot  never  yet 
supported  a  great  character. 

It  is  said  that  Englishmen  when  they 
first  come  to  this  country  are  for  some  time 
under  the  impression  that  American  women 
all  have  deformed  feet,  they  are  so  coy  of 
them  and  so  studiously  careful  to  keep  them 
hid.  That  there  is  an  astonishing  difference 
between  the  women  of  the  two  countries  in 
this  respect,  every  traveller  can  testify;  and 
that  there  is  a  difference  equally  astonishing 
between  the  pedestrian  habits  and  capabili- 
ties of  the  rival  sisters,  is  also  certain. 

The  English  pedestrian,  no  doubt,  has  the 
advantage  of  us  in  the  matter  of  climate;  for, 
notwithstanding  the  traditional  gloom  and 
moroseness  of  English  skies,  they  have  in 
that  country  none  of  those  relaxing,  sinking, 
enervating  days,  of  which  we  have  so  many 
here,  and  which  seem  especially  trying  to 
the  female  constitution, — days  which  with- 
draw all  support  from  the  back  and  loins, 
and  render  walking  of  all  things  burden- 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


some.  Theirs  is  a  climate  of  which  it  has 
been  said  that  "it  invites  men  abroad  more 
days  in  the  year  and  more  hours  in  the  day 
than  that  of  any  other  country." 

Then  their  land  is  threaded  with  paths 
which  invite  the  walker,  and  which  are 
scarcely  less  important  than  the  highways. 
I  heard  of  a  surly  nobleman  near  London 
who  took  it  into  his  head  to  close  a  footpath 
that  passed  through  his  estate  near  his  house, 
and  open  another  one  a  little  farther  off.  The 
pedestrians  objected ;  the  matter  got  into  the 
courts,  and  after  protracted  litigation  the 
aristocrat  was  beaten.  The  path  could  not 
be  closed  or  moved.  The  memory  of  man 
ran  not  to  the  time  when  there  was  not  a 
footpath  there,  and  every  pedestrian  should 
have  the  right  of  way  there  still. 

I  remember  the  pleasure  I  had  in  the  path 
that  connects  Stratford-on-Avon  with  Shot- 
tery,  Shakespeare's  path  when  he  went  court- 
ing Anne  Hathaway.  By  the  king's  highway 
the  distance  is  some  farther,  so  there  is  a 
well-worn  path  along  the  hedge-rows  and 
through  the  meadows  and  turnip  patches. 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


The  traveller  in  it  has  the  privilege  of  cross- 
ing the  railroad  track,  an  unusual  privilege 
in  England,  and  one  denied  to  the  lord  in 
his  carriage,  who  must  either  go  over  or 
under  it.  (It  is  a  privilege,  is  it  not,  to  be 
allowed  the  forbidden,  even  if  it  be  the  privi- 
lege of  being  run  over  by  the  engine?)  In 
strolling  over  the  South  Downs,  too,  I  was 
delighted  to  find  that  where  the  hill  was 
steepest  some  benefactor  of  the  order  of 
walkers  had  made  notches  in  the  sward,  so 
that  the  foot  could  bite  the  better  and  firmer; 
the  path  became  a  kind  of  stairway,  which 
I  have  no  doubt  the  ploughman  respected. 
When  you  see  an  English  country  church 
withdrawn,  secluded,  out  of  the  reach  of 
wheels,  standing  amid  grassy  graves  and  sur- 
rounded by  noble  trees,  approached  by  paths 
and  shaded  lanes,  you  appreciate  more  than 
ever  this  beautiful  habit  of  the  people.  Only 
a  race  that  knows  how  to  use  its  feet,  and 
holds  footpaths  sacred,  could  put  such  a 
charm  of  privacy  and  humility  into  such 
a  structure.  I  think  I  should  be  tempted  to 
go  to  church  myself  if  I  saw  all  my  neigh- 

[87] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


hours  starting  off  across  the  fields  or  along 
paths  that  led  to  such  charmed  spots,  and 
were  sure  I  should  not  be  jostled  or  run  over 
by  the  rival  chariots  of  the  worshippers  at 
the  temple  doors.  I  think  this  is  what  ails 
our  religion;  humility  and  devoutness  of 
hearts  leave  one  when  he  lays  by  his  walking 
shoe  and  walking  clothes,  and  sets  out  for 
church  drawn  by  something. 

Indeed,  I  think  it  would  be  tantamount 
to  an  astonishing  revival  of  religion  if  the 
people  would  all  walk  to  church  on  Sunday 
and  walk  home  again.  Think  how  the  stones 
would  preach  to  them  by  the  wayside;  how 
their  benumbed  minds  would  warm  up  be- 
neath the  friction  of  the  gravel;  how  their 
vain  and  foolish  thoughts,  their  desponding 
thoughts,  their  besetting  demons  of  one  kind 
and  another,  would  drop  behind  them,  un- 
able to  keep  up  or  to  endure  the  fresh  air! 
They  would  walk  away  from  their  ennui, 
their  worldly  cares,  their  uncharitableness, 
their  pride  of  dress;  for  these  devils  always 
want  to  ride,  while  the  simple  virtues  are 
never  so  happy  as  when  on  foot.  Let  us  walk 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


by  all  means;  but  if  we  will  ride,  get  an  ass. 
Then  the  English  claim  that  they  are  a 
more  hearty  and  robust  people  than  we  are. 
It  is  certain  they  are  a  plainer  people,  have 
plainer  tastes,  dress  plainer,  build  plainer, 
speak  plainer,  keep  closer  to  facts,  wear 
broader  shoes  and  coarser  clothes,  place  a 
lower  estimate  on  themselves,  etc., — all  of 
which  traits  favour  pedestrian  habits.  The 
English  grandee  is  not  confined  to  his  car- 
riage; but  if  the  American  aristocrat  leaves 
his,  he  is  ruined.  Oh  the  weariness,  the  emp- 
tiness, the  plotting,  the  seeking  rest  and  find- 
ing none,  that  go  by  in  the  carriages!  while 
your  pedestrian  is  always  cheerful,  alert, 
refreshed,  with  his  heart  in  his  hand  and 
his  hand  free  to  all.  He  looks  down  upon 
nobody ;  he  is  on  the  common  level.  His 
pores  are  all  open,  his  circulation  is  active, 
his  digestion  good.  His  heart  is  not  cold,  nor 
are  his  faculties  asleep.  He  is  the  only  real 
traveller ;  he  alone  tastes  the  "gay,  fresh  sen- 
timent of  the  road."  He  is  not  isolated,  but 
one  with  things,  with  the  farms  and  indus- 
tries on  either  hand.  The  vital,  universal 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


currents  play  through  him.  He  knows  the 
ground  is  alive;  he  feels  the  pulses  of  the 
wind,  and  reads  the  mute  language  of  things. 
His  sympathies  are  all  aroused;  his  senses 
are  continually  reporting  messages  to  his 
mind.  Wind,  frost,  rain,  heat,  cold,  are 
something  to  him.  He  is  not  merely  a  spec- 
tator of  the  panorama  of  nature,  but  a  par- 
ticipator in  it.  He  experiences  the  country 
he  passes  through, — tastes  it,  feels  it,  ab- 
sorbs it;  the  traveller  in  his  fine  carriage  sees 
it  merely.  This  gives  the  fresh  charm  to  that 
class  of  books  that  may  be  called  u  Views 
Afoot,"  and  to  the  narratives  of  hunters,  nat- 
uralists, exploring  parties,  etc.  The  walker 
does  not  need  a  large  territory.  When  you 
get  into  a  railway  car  you  want  a  continent, 
the  man  in  his  carriage  requires  a  town- 
ship; but  a  walker  like  Thoreau  finds  as 
much  and  more  along  the  shores  of  Walden 
Pond.  The  former,  as  it  were,  has  merely 
time  to  glance  at  the  headings  of  the  chap- 
ters, while  the  latter  need  not  miss  a  line, 
and  Thoreau  reads  between  the  lines.  Then 
the  walker  has  the  privilege  of  the  fields, 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


the  woods,  the  hills,  the  byways.  The  apples 
by  the  roadside  are  for  him,  and  the  berries, 
and  the  spring  of  water,  and  the  friendly 
shelter ;  and  if  the  weather  is  cold,  he  eats 
the  frost  grapes  and  the  persimmons,  or  even 
the  white-meated  turnip,  snatched  from  the 
field  he  passed  through,  with  incredible 
relish. 

Afoot  and  in  the  open  road,  one  has  a  fair 
start  in  life  at  last.  There  is  no  hindrance 
now.  Let  him  put  his  best  foot  forward.  He 
is  on  the  broadest  human  plane.  This  is  on 
the  level  of  all  the  great  laws  and  heroic 
deeds.  From  this  platform  he  is  eligible  to 
any  good  fortune.  He  was  sighing  for  the 
golden  age;  let  him  walk  to  it.  Every  step 
brings  him  nearer.  The  youth  of  the  world 
is  but  a  few  days'  journey  distant.  Indeed, 
I  know  persons  who  think  they  have  walked 
back  to  that  fresh  aforetime  of  a  single  bright 
Sunday  in  autumn  or  early  spring.  Before 
noon  they  felt  its  airs  upon  their  cheeks, 
and  by  nightfall,  on  the  banks  of  some  quiet 
stream,  or  along  some  path  in  the  wood,  or 
on  some  hilltop,  aver  they  have  heard  the 

[9-   ] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


voices  and  felt  the  wonder  and  the  mystery 
that  so  enchanted  the  early  races  of  men. 
I  think  if  I  could  walk  through  a  coun- 
try I  should  not  only  see  many  things  and 
have  adventures  that  I  should  otherwise 
miss,  but  that  I  should  come  into  relations 
with  that  country  at  first  hand,  and  with 
the  men  and  women  in  it,  in  a  way  that 
would  afford  the  deepest  satisfaction.  Hence 
I  envy  the  good  fortune  of  all  walkers,  and 
feel  like  joining  myself  to  every  tramp  that 
comes  along.  I  am  jealous  of  the  clergyman 
I  read  about  the  other  day,  who  footed  it 
from  Edinburgh  to  London,  as  poor  Effie 
Deans  did,  carrying  her  shoes  in  her  hand 
most  of  the  way,  and  over  the  ground  that 
rugged  Ben  Jonson  strode,  larking  it  to 
Scotland,  so  long  ago.  I  read  with  longing 
of  the  pedestrian  feats  of  college  youths, 
so  gay  and  light-hearted,  with  their  coarse 
shoes  on  their  feet  and  their  knapsacks  on 
their  backs.  It  would  have  been  a  good 
draught  of  the  rugged  cup  to  have  walked 
with  Wilson  the  ornithologist,  deserted  by 
his  companions,  from  Niagara  to  Philadel- 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


phia  through  the  snows  of  winter.  I  almost 
wish  that  I  had  been  born  to  the  career  of 
a  German  mechanic,  that  I  might  have  had 
that  delicious  adventurous  year  of  wander- 
ing over  my  country  before  I  settled  down  to 
work.  I  think  how  much  richer  and  firmer- 
grained  life  would  be  to  me  if  I  could  jour- 
ney afoot  through  Florida  and  Texas,  or 
follow  the  windings  of  the  Platte  or  the 
Yellowstone,  or  stroll  through  Oregon,  or 
browse  for  a  season  about  Canada.  In  the 
bright  inspiring  days  of  autumn  I  only  want 
the  time  and  the  companion  to  walk  back 
to  the  natal  spot,  the  family  nest,  across 
two  States  and  into  the  mountains  of  a  third. 
What  adventures  we  would  have  by  the 
way,  what  hard  pulls,  what  prospects  from 
hills,  what  spectacles  we  would  behold  of 
night  and  day,  what  passages  with  dogs, 
what  glances,  what  peeps  into  windows, 
what  characters  we  should  fall  in  with,  and 
how  seasoned  and  hardy  we  should  arrive 
at  our  destination ! 

For  companion  I  should  want  a  veteran 
of  the  war!  Those  marches  put  something 

[93] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


into  him  I  like.  Even  at  this  distance  his 
mettle  is  but  little  softened.  As  soon  as  he 
gets  warmed  up  it  all  comes  back  to  him. 
He  catches  your  step  and  away  you  go,  a 
gay,  adventurous,  half-predatory  couple. 
How  quickly  he  falls  into  the  old  ways  of 
jest  and  anecdote  and  song!  You  may  have 
known  him  for  years  without  having  heard 
him  hum  an  air,  or  more  than  casually  revert 
to  the  subject  of  his  experience  during  the 
war.  You  have  even  questioned  and  cross- 
questioned  him  without  firing  the  train  you 
wished.  But  get  him  out  on  a  vacation  tramp, 
and  you  can  walk  it  all  out  of  him.  By  the 
camp-fire  at  night,  or  swinging  along  the 
streams  by  day,  song,  anecdote,  adventure, 
come  to  the  surface,  and  you  wonder  how 
your  companion  has  kept  silent  so  long. 

It  is  another  proof  of  how  walking  brings 
out  the  true  character  of  a  man.  The  devil 
never  yet  asked  his  victims  to  take  a  walk 
with  him.  You  will  not  be  long  in  finding 
your  companion  out.  All  disguises  will  fall 
away  from  him.  As  his  pores  open,  his  char- 
acter is  laid  bare.  His  deepest  and  most  pri- 

[94] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


vate  self  will  come  to  the  top.  It  matters 
little  whom  you  ride  with,  so  he  be  not  a 
pickpocket;  for  both  of  you  will,  very  likely, 
settle  down  closer  and  firmer  in  your  reserve, 
shaken  down  like  a  measure  of  corn  by  the 
jolting  as  the  journey  proceeds.  But  walk- 
ing is  a  more  vital  copartnership;  the  relation 
is  a  closer  and  more  sympathetic  one,  and 
you  do  not  feel  like  walking  ten  paces  with 
a  stranger  without  speaking  to  him. 

Hence  the  fastidiousness  of  the  profes- 
sional walker  in  choosing  or  admitting  a  com- 
panion, and  hence  the  truth  of  a  remark  of 
Emerson  that  you  will  generally  fare  better 
to  take  your  dog  than  to  invite  your  neigh- 
bour. Your  cur-dog  is  a  true  pedestrian,  and 
your  neighbour  is  very  likely  a  small  politi- 
cian. The  dog  enters  thoroughly  into  the 
spirit  of  the  enterprise;  he  is  not  indifferent 
or  preoccupied;  he  is  constantly  sniffing  ad- 
venture, laps  at  every  spring,  looks  upon 
every  field  and  wood  as  a  new  world  to  be 
explored,  is  ever  on  some  fresh  trail,  knows 
something  important  will  happen  a  little  far- 
ther on,  gazes  with  the  true  wonder-seeing 

[95] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


eyes,  whatever  the  spot  or  whatever  the  road 
finds  it  good  to  be  there, — in  short,  is  just 
that  happy,  delicious,  excursive  vagabond 
that  touches  one  at  so  many  points,  and 
whose  human  prototype  in  a  companion  robs 
miles  and  leagues  of  half  their  power  to 
fatigue. 

Persons  who  find  themselves  spent  in  a 
short  walk  to  the  market  or  the  post-office, 
or  to  do  a  little  shopping,  wonder  how  it  is 
that  their  pedestrian  friends  can  compass  so 
many  weary  miles  and  not  fall  down  from 
sheer  exhaustion;  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
the  walker  is  a  kind  of  projectile  that  drops 
far  or  near  according  to  the  expansive  force 
of  the  motive  that  set  it  in  motion,  and  that 
it  is  easy  enough  to  regulate  the  charge  ac- 
cording to  the  distance  to  be  traversed.  If  I 
am  loaded  to  carry  only  one  mile  and  am 
compelled  to  walk  three,  I  generally  feel 
more  fatigue  than  if  I  had  walked  six  under 
the  proper  impetus  of  preadjusted  resolu- 
tion. In  other  words,  the  will  or  corporeal 
mainspring,  whatever  it  be,  is  capable  of  be- 
ing wound  up  to  different  degrees  of  ten- 

[96] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


sion,  so  that  one  may  walk  all  day  nearly 
as  easy  as  half  that  time  if  he  is  prepared 
beforehand.  He  knows  his  task,  and  he  mea- 
sures and  distributes  his  powers  accordingly. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  an  unknown  road 
is  always  a  long  road.  We  cannot  cast  the 
mental  eye  along  it  and  see  the  end  from 
the  beginning.  We  are  fighting  in  the  dark, 
and  cannot  take  the  measure  of  our  foe. 
Every  step  must  be  preordained  and  pro- 
vided for  in  the  mind.  Hence  also  the  fact 
that  to  vanquish  one  mile  in  the  woods  seems 
equal  to  compassing  three  in  the  open  coun- 
try. The  furlongs  are  ambushed,  and  we 
magnify  them. 

Then,  again,  how  annoying  to  be  told  it 
is  only  five  miles  to  the  next  place  when 
it  is  really  eight  or  ten !  We  fall  short  nearly 
half  the  distance,  and  are  compelled  to  urge 
and  roll  the  spent  ball  the  rest  of  the  way. 
In  such  a  case  walking  degenerates  from  a 
fine  art  to  a  mechanic  art;  we  walk  merely; 
to  get  over  the  ground  becomes  the  one  seri- 
ous and  engrossing  thought;  whereas  suc- 
cess in  walking  is  not  to  let  your  right  foot 

[97] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


know  what  your  left  foot  doeth.  Your  heart 
must  furnish  such  music  that  in  keeping 
time  to  it  your  feet  will  carry  you  around 
the  globe  without  knowing  it.  The  walker 
I  would  describe  takes  no  note  of  distance; 
his  walk  is  a  sally,  a  bon  mot,  an  unspoken 
jeu  d*  esprit ;  the  ground  is  his  butt,  his  pro- 
vocation; it  furnishes  him  the  resistance  his 
body  craves ;  he  rebounds  upon  it,  he  glances 
off  and  returns  again,  and  uses  it  gayly  as 
his  tool. 

I  do  not  think  I  exaggerate  the  impor- 
tance or  the  charms  of  pedestrianism,  or  our 
need  as  a  people  to  cultivate  the  art.  I  think 
it  would  tend  to  soften  the  national  man- 
ners, to  teach  us  the  meaning  of  leisure,  to 
acquaint  us  with  the  charms  of  the  open 
air,  to  strengthen  and  foster  the  tie  between 
the  race  and  the  land.  No  one  else  looks  out 
upon  the  world  so  kindly  and  charitably  as 
the  pedestrian;  no  one  else  gives  and  takes 
so  much  from  the  country  he  passes  through. 
Next  to  the  labourer  in  the  fields,  the  walker 
holds  the  closest  relation  to  the  soil;  and 
he  holds  a  closer  and  more  vital  relation  to 

[98] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


nature  because  he  is  freer  and  his  mind 
more  at  leisure. 

Man  takes  root  at  his  feet,  and  at  best 
he  is  no  more  than  a  potted  plant  in  his 
house  or  carriage  till  he  has  established  com- 
munication with  the  soil  by  the  loving  and 
magnetic  touch  of  his  soles  to  it.  Then  the 
tie  of  association  is  born ;  then  spring  those 
invisible  fibres  and  rootlets  through  which 
character  comes  to  smack  of  the  soil,  and 
which  make  a  man  kindred  to  the  spot  of 
earth  he  inhabits. 

The  roads  and  paths  you  have  walked 
along  in  summer  and  winter  weather,  the 
fields  and  hills  which  you  have  looked  upon 
in  lightness  and  gladness  of  heart,  where 
fresh  thoughts  have  come  into  your  mind, 
or  some  noble  prospect  has  opened  before 
you,  and  especially  the  quiet  ways  where 
you  have  walked  in  sweet  converse  with 
your  friend,  pausing  under  the  trees,  drink- 
ing at  the  spring, — henceforth  they  are  not 
the  same;  a  new  charm  is  added;  those 
thoughts  spring  there  perennial,  your  friend 
walks  there  forever. 

[99] 


JOHN  BURROUGHS 


We  have  produced  some  good  walkers 
and  saunterers,  and  some  noted  climbers; 
but  as  a  staple  recreation,  as  a  daily  practice, 
the  mass  of  the  people  dislike  and  despise 
walking.  Thoreau  said  he  was  a  good  horse, 
but  a  poor  roadster.  I  chant  the  virtues  of 
the  roadster  as  well.  I  sing  of  the  sweetness 
of  gravel,  good  sharp  quartz-grit.  It  is  the 
proper  condiment  for  the  sterner  seasons, 
and  many  a  human  gizzard  would  be  cured 
of  half  its  ills  by  a  suitable  daily  allowance 
of  it.  I  think  Thoreau  himself  would  have 
profited  immensely  by  it.  His  diet  was  too 
exclusively  vegetable.  A  man  cannot  live 
on  grass  alone.  If  one  has  been  a  lotus-eater 
all  summer,  he  must  turn  gravel-eater  in 
the  fall  and  winter.  Those  who  have  tried  it 
know  that  gravel  possesses  an  equal  though 
an  opposite  charm.  It  spurs  to  action.  The 
foot  tastes  it  and  henceforth  rests  not.  The 
joy  of  moving  and  surmounting,  of  attrition 
and  progression,  the  thirst  for  space,  for 
miles  and  leagues  of  distance,  for  sights  and 
prospects,  to  cross  mountains  and  thread 
rivers,  and  defy  frost,  heat,  snow,  danger, 


JOHN  B'UkRb'tTGHS' 


difficulties,  seizes  it;  and  from  that  day  forth 
its  possessor  is  enrolled  in  the  noble  army  of 
walkers. 


[    ,0.    ] 


NIGHT  AND  THE  INN 

WILLIAM  MORRIS 
(FROM  "  THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  MARCH  WIND") 

F ROM  township  to  township,  o'er  down 
and  by  tillage 

fair,  far  have  we  wandered  and  long 
was  the  day ; 

But  now  cometh  eve  at  the  end  of  the  vil- 
lage, 

Where  over  the  grey  wall  the  church 
riseth  grey. 

There  is  wind  in  the  twilight;  in  the 
white  road  before  us 

The  straw  from  the  ox-yard  is  blowing 
about; 

The  moon's  rim  is  rising,  a  star  glitters 
0Vr  us, 

And  the  vane  on  the  spire-top  is  swing- 
ing in  doubt. 


WILLIAM  MORRIS 


Down  there  dips  the  highway,  toward 

the  bridge  crossing  over 
The  brook  that  runs  on  to  the  Thames 

and  the  sea. 
Draw  closer,  my  sweet,  we  are  lover 

and  lover; 
This  eve  art  thou  given  to  gladness  and 

me. 

Come  back  to  the  inn,  love,  and  the  lights 
and  thejire, 

And  the  fiddlers  old  tune  and  the  shuf- 
fling of  feet; 

For  there  in  a  while  shall  be  rest  and 
desire, 

And  there  shall  the  morrow^  s  uprising 
be  sweet. 

Yet,  love,  as  we  wend,  the  wind  blow- 
eth  behind  us, 

And  beareth  the  last  tale  it  telleth  to- 
night, 

[  '03] 


WILLIAM  MORRIS 


How  here  in  the  springtide  the  message 

shall  find  us; 
For  the  hope  that  none  seeketh  is  coming 

to  light. 
•          ••••• 

For  it  beareth  the  message:  "Rise  up  on 

the  morrow, 
And  go  on  your  ways  toward  the  doubt 

and  the  strife; 
Join  hope  to  our  hope  and  blend  sorrow 

with  sorrow. 
And  seek  for  men* s  love  in  the  short  days 

of  life." 

But  lo,  the  old  inn,  and  the  lights,  and 
the  fire, 

And  the  fiddlers  old  tune  and  the  shuf- 
fling °f ftet; 

Soon  for  us  shall  be  quiet  and  rest  and 
desire, 

And  to-morrow'* s  uprising  to  deeds  shall 
be  sweet. 


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